A NON-emergency service initially labelled “diabolical” is continuing to improve, a report claims.

The latest monitoring report on E-Zec Medical reveals improvements in five key areas, with the result that complaints fell considerably between October 2013 and November 2014.

However, it says there are still issues with data not being provided and the number of aborted journeys.

E-Zec Medical was heavily criticised when it first took over the service from South Western Ambulance NHS Trust in October 2013.

It immediately struggled to cope with demand, leading to patients missing hospital appointments, complaining they could not get through to call handlers and ambulances turning up at the wrong time.

The latest report is due to go before Dorset County Council’s health scrutiny committee on Tuesday, March 10.

It states that E-Zec now has patient transport liaison officers to focus on the communication, training and development of the service and has recruited a renal co-ordinator to reduce problems with kidney patients.

Call centre performance has improved significantly and this has been maintained over the past year and there is now a system in place to phone patients the day before their booked journey, to try and reduce aborted trips.

But despite this, there were 1,138 aborted trips in December 2014, mainly due to patients either not being ready, making their own way to hospital or being too ill to travel.

Aborted trips were also caused by appointments being cancelled at short notice.

The report states: “Further work needs to be done with E-Zec and partners to reduce the number of aborts, particularly in those areas where there is a potential to prevent these, for example, patients not being ready.

“This remains a concern for DCCG and will be monitored through the contract review meetings.”