NHS 'sorry' for Private Ambulance Service failings
The NHS in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire has apologised to non-emergency patients for the poor service in transporting them to hospitals by the Private Ambulance Service.
There were countless complaints from patients about the level of service they received, such as having to wait hours to be picked up and sometimes they did not turn up at all.
Chair of the Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Dr Alvin Low, said: "This is not an acceptable service and I do apologise to our patients and public who were affected.
"This is not the service that we had intended for them, but as soon as we were aware of the problems we then invoked the management processes...
"I'm unable to predict the future, what I can say is that going forward we've learnt a lot of lessons in terms of how we would manage this differently and we will be looking at a much more robust process of selecting a provider."
Unison's regional secretary in Luton, Chris Jenkinson, said: "'Sorrys' don't pay the mortgage do they, and they don't pay people's rent.
"We were saying from the outset that this company are not up to it, they didn't have the capacity to be able to run this contract, they didn't have the experience."
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NHS 'sorry' for Private Ambulance Service failings
The NHS in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire has apologised to non-emergency patients for the poor service in transporting them to hospitals by the Private Ambulance Service.
The Essex-based company stopped trading at the beginning of this month - just over half way through its year-long contract.
There were countless complaints from patients about the level of service they received, such as having to wait hours to be picked up and sometimes they did not turn up at all.
Chair of the Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Dr Alvin Low, said: "This is not an acceptable service and I do apologise to our patients and public who were affected.
"This is not the service that we had intended for them, but as soon as we were aware of the problems we then invoked the management processes...
"I'm unable to predict the future, what I can say is that going forward we've learnt a lot of lessons in terms of how we would manage this differently and we will be looking at a much more robust process of selecting a provider."
Unison's regional secretary in Luton, Chris Jenkinson, said: "'Sorrys' don't pay the mortgage do they, and they don't pay people's rent.
"We were saying from the outset that this company are not up to it, they didn't have the capacity to be able to run this contract, they didn't have the experience."