Swindon community bus company Akcess has stepped in to provide a vital service by transporting dialysis patients to and from the town’s Great Western Hospital.
The firm came to the aid of the current provider, which had been struggling to provide a quality service for patients needing dialysis six-days-a-week at GWH. 
Akcess provides school transport and transport for children with special needs, wheelchair users and elderly people with mobility problems, and was already helping out in Oxfordshire with non-emergency patient transport services, known as NEPTS.
Now the community interest company, based on the town’s Elgin industrial estate, has taken on transporting more than 16 people to and from their dialysis treatment in Swindon.
It has also taken on NEPTS transport in Gloucestershire, with between one and two crews a day providing patients with transport home to and from, or between, hospitals throughout the entire county.
Akcess has set up a sister company, Akcess Medical, to cater for this expanding side of its business and director Mark Kennedy has invested in a fleet of 10 ambulances as well as introducing intensive first aid training for staff.
The operation has been inspected and fully endorsed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Mark said: “We had been helping out with NEPTS in Oxfordshire for some time. We were then asked by the same provider to help out with renal patients who were having lengthy waits to be taken to and from their dialysis treatment at Great Western Hospital.
“We set up Akcess Medical and have been approved by the CQC, so we could extend our service into Gloucestershire. In fact, ours is the only NEPTS transport vehicle in Gloucestershire to carry a defibrillator.”
Mark ensured all staff undertook an intensive ambulance care assistant course, so they are able to administer first aid; on more than one occasion, they have had to help patients who have been taken ill.
He added: “Akcess Medical is still a relatively small part of our business, mainly because the school and day centre transport side has grown extensively over the last year and we now have 135 vehicles on the road, but it has great potential to grow. We have taken over the building next to us for Akcess Medical, so we have the room we need to expand.”
