An ambulance service jeopardised patient and staff safety to try to improve its performance, a health watchdog said. Staffordshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust also issued staff with drugs that they were not legally allowed to have, the Healthcare Commission found.

The trust took risks with patient and staff safety while making “innovative” attempts to improve its service. The service has since merged with West Midlands Ambulance.

In a 96-page report, the commission emphasised that the Staffordshire service was a “good performer” in terms of response times for emergency calls. But the eight-month inquiry found that the achievements of the service were undermined by a “culture and approach” that did not prioritise safety.

Investigators found that ambulance staff and volunteer community first responders were supplied with controlled drugs, such as the sedatives diazepam and midazolam, that they were not entitled to possess. It was also discovered that medicines in the trust’s stations regularly went missing or were unaccounted for and that community first responders were allowed to drive at speed using blue lights and sirens without the necessary advanced driver training.

Commenting on the report, Anna Walker, the Healthcare Commission chief executive, said that managers at Staffordshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust were motivated by the best intentions. But she added: “Some of the practices in the trust put the safety of patients, volunteers and staff at risk.

“Patients, staff and the public could have been seriously hurt as a result of the compromised safety culture. The trust sought to be innovative, and that is to be applauded, but it did not have effective systems in place to handle this innovation safely.

“This undermined many of the good achievements made on behalf of patients.”

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