NSL is an outsourcing company formed in Spring 2007 by the demerger of NCP into two separate businesses. It provides parking services, bus and coach operations, city centre CCTV monitoring, back office processing, [1] streetscape consultancy and debt recovery.
The company first demerged as NCP Services in 2007, and became NSL Services Group in April 2009. In January 2017 NSL was acquired by Marston Holdings.
NCP Challenger commenced trading on 12 November 2005, having successfully tendered to operate routes 33 and 419 under contract to Transport for London. [2]
In April 2009, NCP Challenger was rebranded NSL Buses. [3] On 13 November 2009, NSL buses was sold to Transdev with operations taken over by its London United subsidiary. [4] [5]
NSL patient transport includes services for non-emergency, high-dependency, bariatric and secure/mental health patients. NSL is the largest private non-emergency patient transport provider in the UK, transporting over 2m patients to and from their appointments every year. NSL is a member of the Independent Ambulance Association (IAA).
It was chosen by NHS Kent and Medway in January 2013 to provide non-emergency patient transport. [6]
NSL also provide a number of other services. These include:
At a January 2012 employment tribunal, NSL was described as "predatory and dishonest". [7]
NSL has been subject to investigation into unfair practices by Channel 4's Cutting Edge programme. [8]
Westminster Council CEOs (outsourced to NSL) have also been filmed using illegal tactics to block cars. [9]
In January 2014 The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said the service did not meet mandatory standards in four out of five areas. It found patients had experienced long waits and some staff had not undergone criminal record checks. [10] In April 2014 the clinical commissioning groups in Kent agreed to provide an extra £1.6m for their contract as part of a "last chance" deal to improve its performance. Ian Ayres, chief officer for West Kent Clinical Commissioning Group, which manages the contract on behalf of eight CCGs in Kent and Medway told the Kent County Council Scrutiny Committee; "the information which was available to commissioners drawing up the invitation to tender was incomplete, and therefore so was the specification." [11]
Addenbrooke's Hospital is an internationally renowned teaching hospital and research centre in Cambridge, England, with strong affiliations to the University of Cambridge. Addenbrooke's Hospital is based on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. The hospital is run by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a designated academic health science centre. It is also the East of England's major trauma centre and was the first such centre to be operational in the United Kingdom.
Patient transport is a service that transfers patients to and from medical facilities in non-emergency situations.
The London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (LAS) is an NHS trust responsible for operating ambulances and answering and responding to urgent and emergency medical situations within the London region of England. The service responds to 999 phone calls across the region, and 111 phone calls from certain parts, providing triage and advice to enable an appropriate level of response.
The Scottish Ambulance Service is part of NHS Scotland, which serves all of Scotland's population. The Scottish Ambulance Service is governed by a special health board and is funded directly by the Health and Social Care Directorates of the Scottish Government.
The South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) is the NHS ambulance services trust for south-eastern England, covering Kent, Surrey, West Sussex and East Sussex. It also covers a part of north-eastern Hampshire around Aldershot, Farnborough, Fleet and Yateley. The service was made an NHS foundation trust on 1 March 2011.
The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS) is the ambulance service for North West England. It is one of ten ambulance trusts providing England with Emergency medical services, and is part of the National Health Service, receiving direct government funding for its role.
London United is a bus company operating mostly in west and south-west Greater London. It is a subsidiary of the RATP Dev Transit London and operates services under contract to Transport for London.
The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the National Health Service (NHS) across South West England. It serves the council areas of Bath and North East Somerset, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, North Somerset, Plymouth, Isles of Scilly, Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, Torbay and Wiltshire.
The Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust (YAS) is the NHS ambulance service covering most of Yorkshire in England. It is one of ten NHS Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency medical services as part of the National Health Service it receives direct government funding for its role.
The South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS) is the ambulance service for the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire. It is a foundation trust of the National Health Service, and one of ten NHS ambulance trusts in England.
The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) is an NHS trust responsible for providing National Health Service (NHS) ambulance services in the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, in the East of England region. These consist of approximately 6.2 million people across an area of 7,500 square miles (19,000 km2).
The West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust (WMAS) is responsible for providing NHS ambulance services within the West Midlands region of England. It is one of ten ambulance trusts providing England with emergency medical services, and is part of the National Health Service.
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services (NHS) of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is only free to UK residents and a charge may be made to those not entitled to free NHS care. The NHS commissions most emergency medical services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK.
Healthcare in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter, with England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each having their own systems of publicly funded healthcare, funded by and accountable to separate governments and parliaments, together with smaller private sector and voluntary provision. As a result of each country having different policies and priorities, a variety of differences have developed between these systems since devolution.
The East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EMAS) provides emergency medical services, urgent care and patient transport services for the 4.8 million people within the East Midlands region of the UK - covering Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. It was formed in 1999 by amalgamating several county ambulance services, and in July 2006 was dissolved and reformed under the same name as part of a nationwide reorganisation of ambulance service provision.
Medway NHS Trust is an NHS foundation trust based in Kent which runs Medway Maritime Hospital.
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are NHS organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in England. The announcement that GPs would take over this commissioning role was made in the 2010 white paper "Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS". This was part of the government's stated desire to create a clinically-driven commissioning system that was more sensitive to the needs of patients. The 2010 white paper became law under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 in March 2012. At the end of March 2013 there were 211 CCGs, but a series of mergers had reduced the number to 135 by April 2020.
Healthcare in London, which consumes about a fifth of the NHS budget in England, is in many respects distinct from that in the rest of the United Kingdom, or England.
Healthcare in Kent is now mainly the responsibility from 1 April 2020 of the Kent & Medway Clinical Commissioning Group. Certain specialised services are directly commissioned by NHS England, coordinated through the South East integrated regional team. Some NHS England structures are aligned on a Kent & Medway basis, others on a South East basis and there is liaison with London that provides many tertiary healthcare services to the residents of Kent.
Healthcare in Sussex was the responsibility of seven Clinical Commissioning Groups covering: Brighton and Hove; Coastal West Sussex; Horsham and Mid Sussex; Crawley; Eastbourne Hailsham and Seaford; Hastings and Rother; High Weald; and Lewes-Havens from 2013 to 2020. From April 2020 they will be merged into three covering East Sussex, West Sussex, and Brighton and Hove.