Emedgroup Omdömen 114

Absolutely shocking patient transport service, left a 90 year old wheelchair patient for 5 hours who could not get out of her wheelchair, had no food or drink as scared she would need the toilet, the booking system is clearly not working, she was marked ready at 11.15 and pick up was not scheduled until 4.15, when we complained - several phone calls they said it was because it was originally booked for 2pm, but this is ridiculous as what is the point of marking somebody ready. Staff are often very rude when calling or do not even answer the phone. We have problems all the time with EMED with patients to and from our therapies unit, leaving vulnerable patients for long periods of time.

Unreliable company,either turn up late or not at all !!
We live in Hailsham and were told to be ready at 12pm for a 2pm Scan appointment at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton.
After two frantic phone calls the transport eventually turned up at 1.50pm leaving ten minutes to drive over 20 miles! NOT IMPRESSED.
Return journey even worse as transport didn't turn up at all,the hospital actually had to arrange a Brighton taxi to bring us home at their expense.
Emed need to get their act together as the NHS are paying a lot of taxpayers money for the service they are constantly failing to provide.
The staff at the hospital were appalled at the way Emed treat their patients and have lost count of the times they've had to complain.
Be advised that if you have an important medical appointment and can get there by any other means then I would certainly advise you to do so.

left waiting for four hours after my appointment. Six telephone calls…. five different ETA….. eventually they show up after four hours and 10 minutes.. cannot be trusted

"Ella" who is a phone operative, has no clue on what she's doing. We had requested transport for my grandmother who is vision impaired and hard of hearing to have an escort, to which this particular staff member has told us that she won't be eligible. This is the 4th trip we have taken with emed, nothing has changed, yet this is the first time she was rejected for an escort. It was evident that she did not read the patients notes which are readily accessible on their system.

Needless to say, rang the patient query line and made a booking with a different member of staff who apologised on her behalf and said we should have been accepted and escort.

As well as several other issues with this company's management, this was what had happened today, incredibly unreliable, however, the patient transport staff themselves are wonderful.

I would not even give them one star given the choice. Left me stranded in a London Hospital while I live down in Brighton. Driver turned up 2 hours early and just left me stranded instead of waiting. Had to get a train home feeling very unwell, vulnerable and blurry eyes due to eye drops dilating my pupils. Terrible company and no care for patients.

Lovely staff, insanely poor management.

We were due to be picked up at Stoke Mandeville Hospital at 2:45 PM after a rheumatology appointment, there was no crew available. We were then told that we would be collected at 4:43 PM, then we were informed of a delay due to a renal patient being picked up. Again, we called and were told no crew was assigned to pick us up and to expect an ambulance by 8PM.

Overall, we were picked up at 9:07 PM... Needless to say, we were very unimpressed, however, the driving staff were very helpful and the fault is not theirs and we appreciated their service nonetheless.

We've been waiting for 2 days in Wexham Park hospital for EMED to honour a booking to take us a half hour drive back to my mother's care home. EMED don't honour their promised bookings and can't tell us when they will come. We may die here.

Outrageous service. Lazy workers making excuses not to transport my grandmother home and therefore keeping her in a hospital to do a ‘risk assessment’ despite being the ones who transported her to hospital in the first place. Useless customer service, provided no information and clearly has zero care or interest in the wellbeing of patients. The NHS needs to cut ties with this disgraceful service as soon as they can.

I booked a return from the Royal Surrey County hospital when I made the booking to there on the 30/04/2025 as I had an appointment for 10.30am as I am in a wheel chair. The driver picked me up at 9.00am and tookme for a trip round surrey an got on the M25 an then drove at break neck speed still getting me there late. After my appointment the the hospital telephoned to let Emed know I was ready for collection, and was told that the transport was on it's way.
We Both teleponed the control centre and the transport arrived at 16.45pm and had other people to drop off. Again I had a tour around Surrey and got home at 18.45pm. All this time I was in stuck in the wheelchiar. I coplained to EMED (DEBIE) still no one has replied, THIS IS A DISGRACEFUL SERVICE AND HEADS SHOULD ROLL.

Shockingly bad service, I cannot believe a company that is dealing with elderly and frail individuals can make so many mistakes. My mum has been using this service to get to the South Wigston dialysis unit, she has on number of occasions not be collected as they thought she had already been picked up to be taken to the unit. They have arrived late and well past her appointment time. She has come home late at night nearly every night three times a week when she uses the service, she has come home after 11:30pm as well. This has caused her to have anxiety and the family to also suffer with the anxious waiting around as she needs a care when she comes home. Even though I have called up everytime something goes wrong with their timings, nothing is done to improve it, it is as if noone has the job to put measures in place to improve so it doesn’t happen again. I feel really helpless as no one does anything to sort the issues out and it has gone to a point where my mum has said she just can’t do this any longer all because of the transport issues. With this many complaints in place, something really should be done. I would suggest to avoid this service if possible if you have a choice, unfortunately I don’t have this choice as we need to get her to the unit but I really wish something is sorted out.

We had to go to the Royal Berkshire hospital on the 1st of May we were due to be collected from the hospital at 12.40pm driver eventually arrived at 13.15pm took one look at the wheelchair and said I can't take that but tried to phone his managers whilst saying he wasn't trying to get out of the job which he then went on to say it several more times making us believe that he did want to get out of it, we eventually went to the ambulance and got on without any problems however despite locking the wheelchair down he said the equipment was faulty despite everything being brand new he got us of the ambulance and left us in the car park and the 27 degree heat didn't offer any water and got someone from another Emed ambulance to take us back to where they picked us up he was completely unprofessional and at the very least needs retraining. 2 hours later another Emed ambulance arrived we assuming it was for us spoke to them only to find out it wasn't for us but they had presence of mind to phone their manager's who told them there was an issue and to bring us home they were professional and eventually got us home at 16.10pm. We are now looking at other's ways of getting to the hospital and will not be using Emed again.

Dad requires collection and return twice a week for dialysis. He had high hopes for this new service but seeing the existing reviews and his experience in recent weeks, I am not surprised he is upset and stressed. Drivers are late, go the wrong way and don’t listen to his help as if he is some kind of geriatric fool who doesn’t know the local area like the back of his hand, and he has already lost hours waiting when he should be safely back at home. Thoroughly disappointed that patients are treated this way and no sign of improvement. Drivers don’t get their lunch breaks it seems, perhaps with more support they wouldn’t waste so much petrol driving round stupid routes and carrying people miles out of their way. Control are only in control of accepting the cash from the taxpayer via nhs is seems. It shouldn’t be so hard, particularly for regular service which doesn’t change week to week. For shame.

Myself and another patient need to be conveyed from Maidenhead to Bracknell regularly for dialysis treatment.
In the short time EMED have been operating, we have been singularly unimpressed.
Only this morning, no vehicle turned up at the expected time, a ten minute call to their control centre being a waste of time, as they could give me no idea of a pickup time. A terrible service.

To whom it may concern.
I have been using patient transport for the past 14 months and have always been totally satisfied with the prompt service I have received for important hospital appointments, today was different, I cannot complain about the collection from home part of the journey, the driver was on time, kind and considerate and all went according to plan. I arrived for my appointment at 11.30am, had a 45 minute wait at OCDEM (podiatry) and finished my treatment at 1pm, patient transport were informed that I was ready to be picked up and the wait began, despite repeated calls by OCDEM staff and assurances that "transport was on their way" nobody arrived. I sat in the wheelchair at the entrance and watched several patients arrive and then be collected whilst I sat and waited wondering why I was being left behind, I appealed to 3 separate crews who all informed me that I wasn't on their list for collection, one very kind crew member tried phoning for assistance but was unable to contact the control centre after being on hold for about 15 minutes when she had to leave and transport her patient. I continued to wait and wait and wait until 5pm when the 1 remaining OCDEM receptionist on duty was told that patient transport would now be sending a dedicated taxi, needless to say the taxi never arrived, it was again the final one of an afternoon full of empty promises from patient transport.
Eventually the 2 podiatrists who had remained after working hours to keep me company and ensure that I would eventually get home decided to call a taxi themselves to fetch me, I finally got home at 6.30pm, 7.5 hours after I was collected from my home which happens to be only a 10 minute drive from the Churchill hospital.
The whole experience was distressing and I was very anxious about not having taken my medication that morning or eaten anything, I have chronic medical conditions and require meds and food for diabetes which I habitually take at midday as prescribed. If you are going to continue to require patients to expect to dedicate 7-8 hours for hospital appointments it would be advisable to inform them to take a packed lunch or snack and essential medication with them.
Today's experience was terrible, yes various kind people did try and help me but unfortunately patient transport were deaf to their efforts and I and they were all badly let down.
I hope the situation improves and other elderly people like me with mobility issues are not left for hours on end in uncomfortable wheelchairs designed for short trips and not 7 hours that seemed endless to me.
Yours faithfully,
Karen Michalowsky

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Patients being left for hours

Patients left for hours waiting to be picked up. No communication from EMED, leaving patients wondering if they will ever be collected. This causes a lot of worry and stress.

NHS staff try their best to chase things up, however they are met with no response from EMED
Met with rude and uninterested response from the call centre.
Not good at all

This is the 2nd time EMED not arrived
I have a fix appt 12-1pm
They say they will come at 12.30
It's time 12.04 I was called to say they are coming for me, by the time I het to hospital it's time to get back.
No matter how much I say its' one hour appt. they insist I change the time of the .
This is causing so much stress.
Please give us the service we deserve. I have given my youth and more for this NHS I and the nation deserves more than this.
The call handler didn't have the concept of hospital appt system neither the crew who called me.

Same as other poor reviews, no communication on day of due pick up. Waited til last minute for departure time for the operator to find out they were a minimum 20/30 mins away! I cancelled the appointment and drove myself as there was no plan B would have to wait for a taxi etc (I’m not supposed to drive for a month minimum)
Couldn’t find one positive review.

I waited 4.5 hours for this poor excuse of a company to pick me up for my return journey from RSCH. The lady I shared the journey up with was collected an hour earlier but the crew didn't take me - I wasn't on their ticket! The crew did kindly acknowledge me but couldn't take me.

EMED may have sold a great business deal (improved productivity, reduced costs erc) to the NHS but the NHS have been conned. EMED have no idea of what customer service and satisfaction means; the customer being the patient not the NHS.

I would strongly recommend the NHS returns to their previous patient transport supplier.

None of this is criticism of the transport crews, rather it's the pen-pushers, coordinators and management who come across as incompetent, uncaring and self-serving. They just see the £££s.

there is a survey going around about emed i found this out at royal surrey fill it in because EMED need to be stopped before it effects too many more Patients ( would not let me post the link) or report them to CQC

I have heard horror stories about Emed in Surrey they are taking over Bucks Berks and Oxfordshire in April 25 who knows how they will cope when they can’t even deal with Surrey Yes SCAS weren't perfect but they where better then this

Fine if you want to book a doctor - but literally anything else becomes a full time job trying to manage with eMed - wish I stayed with my original doctor.

Try getting bloods or follow up appointments become a full time job and there is just no point calling as the receptionists are rude, don’t listen, or just hang up. I waste hours and made to feel like im literally begging for bloods to be taken, fine as a one off but I need to do every 3 months.

Im exhusted. I hate eMed.