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What our priorities are and how we are doing

In this section you'll find all about the wider strategies and plans of the ambulance service, as well as information on who audits us and the governing bodies we are accountable to.  

Performance against targets

Making sure that our patients receive the best and most appropriate care is very important to NEAS. We monitor our performance against a framework of Key Performance Indicators, making sure that we are delivering patient care to the highest standard.

The NEAS Board is presented with regular performance reports at each of its meetings and the most recent can be viewed below.

Most recent board reports

You can also view our latest performance and quality indicators and compare these against those of other ambulance trusts by clicking here (source: Association of Ambulance Chief Executives).

Following a request from NHS Durham, Darlington and Easington and Sedgefield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), we now produce monthly reports on our performance in the Durham Dales area - you can see these reports here.

Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP)

Our Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP) outlines actions that are necessary to protect the core services and supply the best possible level of service with the resources we have available.

There are four levels of escalation.

REAP is designed to ‘be informed’ by any disruptive challenges and ‘to inform’ internally and to the wider NHS, and other partner agencies, of the pressures facing the organisation. The considerations and actions contained within ‘the REAP’ are designed to assist in protecting staff, patients and the organisation and should be viewed as a guidance in challenging situations. Processes are also in place to report REAP data on a national level via the template.

We are currently operating at REAP level 3.

Quality Improvement Schemes

Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) enables our commissioners to reward us for quality improvement and excellence by linking a proportion of our income to the achievement of local quality improvement goals.

We agree our CQUIN framework with our commissioners based on areas where we feel we can improve quality and increase the number of new working practices.

To see our latest goals, please click here.

Clinical Governance

NEAS work hard to encourage an environment, ensuring that improved patient care and safety is of the highest priority to all of our staff. We have some key strategic objectives to ensure we continue to further advance this environment. We report our progress against these objectives in our annual reports which can be found above.

Our Clinical Governance Strategy is currently under review and will be published here shortly. 

Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator for health and social care in England. Its role is to ensure that providers are meeting national standards and drive improvements.

For more information, including our latest inspection report, please click here.

Audit Reports

All NHS organisations are subject to independent external audit.  The Trust's external auditors issue three different audit opinions, in line with the below workstreams:

1. Undertake an audit of our annual accounts to determine whether they provide a 'true and fair' view;
2. Determine whether the Trust has proper arrangements in place to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness, more commonly known as 'value for money'; and
3. Undertake specific testing on the Trust's Quality Report to determine whether the mandated national performance indicators are accurate in all material respects, and whether the content of the Report is consistent with other sources (for example the material contained with Board and committee reports and papers).

The external auditor prepares and issues an Annual Letter which summarises the key issues arising from its work over the past year, and any associated recommendations for management to address. You can view the latest annual audit letter by clicking here.

Patient Experience Surveys

Patient-centred care is at the heart of plans for the NHS, and the North East Ambulance Service is dedicated to giving our patients a voice, and making sure that what they tell us, shapes our services for them. Below are the responses to the latest survey results for Friends and Family Test (FFT) and our Annual Survey 

To find out more about our patient surveys please click here.