A new chief executive has been announced for Kent and Surrey’s ambulance service, taking over during a ‘very difficult period for the trust’.
Daren Mochrie will take over from acting chief executive Geraint Davies at South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) in order to ‘support the recovery’ of the trust, which has faced several problems over the past year.
The former head Paul Sutton left his position in May last year following a scandal over an emergency response times pilot scheme.
The trust came under fire in March after a report was published stating ‘fundamental failures in governance’ were found during the pilot.
SECAmb were placed in 'special measures' by the Care Quality Commission.
The independent review by Deloitte into the pilot scheme looked at the decision making processes from transferring 111 calls over to 999 handling, and the subsequent waiting times.
Red 2 and Green 111 categorise the caller’s urgency. Red 2 calls mean a patient is in a life-threatening emergency and is the second most urgent category.
Investigators found that the trust did not look at the impact of the scheme on patients and breached NHS 111 commissioning standards.
Additionally, the changes to the Red 2 clock start times were not in line with nationally-agreed operating standards, which require a response time within eight minutes.
The report found that Mr Sutton had signed off on the ‘re-triaging’ of emergency calls – effectively restarting the clock to log response times.
Aside from the independent investigation the trust was then told to make ‘significant improvements’ in the quality of its services by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in July, who rated the service overall as ‘inadequate’.
In August they lost the contract to provide non-emergency transport to vulnerable patients.
The following month the trust was placed in ‘special measures’ by the CQC.
Incoming chief executive Mr Mochrie has nearly 30 years of experience working in the NHS in Scotland, and is currently the director of service delivery for the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Daren Mochrie. Photo: SECamb
He was the lead for ambulance provision in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow as well as being a specialist advisor with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), leading four recent CQC inspections of ambulance trusts in England.
In announcing the appointment, SECAmb Chairman Sir Peter Dixon said: “I am delighted that we have been able to secure a new chief executive with Daren’s skills and experience and I’m confident he will provide the necessary leadership to support our recovery.”
The Trust is working to agree a start date and Mr Davies will continue in his role until then.
Sir Peter added: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank Geraint for the stability and focus that he has provided during this very difficult period for the Trust.”
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