Patient transport for care homes in Coventry and Warwickshire

Patient transport for care homes in Coventry and Warwickshire

Umar Jahangir | Hampton Travel | Last updated: 5 August 2026

Quick answer: Pre-booked transport for care home residents across Coventry and Warwickshire. Named DBS-checked driver confirmed in advance, agreed pickup time, wheelchair accessible vehicle available, and a logged record of every journey. Licensed private hire, not an ambulance service. Call 0800 061 4661.

Getting a resident to an appointment on time is rarely the hard part. The hard part is knowing, at eight in the morning, whether it is actually going to happen.

Why booking on the day fails residents

On-demand transport works for people who can absorb a delay. Someone waiting for a hospital referral, dressed and ready since half seven, cannot.

Care coordinators know the pattern well enough to recite it. Resident booked for 9am. Transport called at 8. The operator cannot confirm arrival. By 8:45 the booking is in doubt. By 9:15 the appointment is gone, and the resident has been sitting in a coat for ninety minutes for nothing. Then it gets rebooked for six weeks' time.

The cost is not really the wasted journey. It is the resident who is now anxious about the next one.

What pre-booked actually means

The driver, the vehicle and the pickup time are fixed when the booking is made, not searched for on the morning. You give us the resident's name, the pickup address, the destination, the appointment time, and any mobility or assistance requirement. We confirm the vehicle and the driver's arrival time.

On the day the driver arrives when we said. No phone call asking for directions, no waiting while they finish another job first, no price that has moved since you booked.

What we are, and what we are not

We are a private hire operator licensed by Coventry City Council. Drivers are DBS-checked. We hold home to school transport contracts with Warwickshire County Council for children with special educational needs, which is the most heavily scrutinised passenger work a private hire operator can be trusted with.

We are not an ambulance service, and we are not CQC-registered non-emergency patient transport. We do not carry stretcher patients and we provide no clinical care during the journey. If a resident needs medical supervision in transit, that is an NHS or private ambulance job and we will tell you so rather than take the booking.

Being straight about that line is the point. A transport provider who says yes to everything is a provider who will eventually turn up to something they cannot handle.

The audit trail

Every journey is logged with the date, the time, the resident and the driver against it.

That record exists because our council contracts require it, and care homes get the benefit of the same system. If you are asked to evidence how a resident got to an appointment and who was driving, reconstructing it from memory afterwards is not good enough for anyone inspecting you. It should be a two minute answer.

Standing arrangements

For homes booking regularly, a standing arrangement works better than booking each journey cold: a named contact, agreed pickup windows, and the same drivers seeing the same residents.

Driver continuity matters more here than anywhere else in our work. A resident with dementia meeting a different stranger every fortnight has a harder journey than one who recognises the person at the door. Ask for it when you book. It costs nothing and we hold it wherever the rota allows.

Wheelchair users

Our wheelchair accessible vehicle has a side-loading ramp, a four-point M1 restraint anchored to the floor, and a separate lap and shoulder belt for the passenger. Drivers are trained on the restraint procedure.

Drivers do not perform lift transfers. No insured private hire driver should be manually lifting a passenger, and done badly it injures both people. A lift needs your own trained staff or a family member present. Agree who is doing it at the booking stage rather than at the door.

It is one vehicle, so accessible bookings need more notice than standard ones.

Vehicles and coverage

Saloons, MPVs and 8-seaters, carrying up to 8 passengers, plus the accessible vehicle. We use whichever suits the resident and the journey rather than whatever is nearest.

We cover care homes across Coventry and throughout Warwickshire, including Bedworth, Kenilworth, Rugby, Leamington Spa, Warwick, Nuneaton and Stratford-upon-Avon, to any hospital or clinic in mainland UK.

Accounts

For homes moving several residents regularly, a travel account removes the per-journey admin: you top up a balance, journeys draw from it at the price agreed per booking, and you get one statement covering every resident instead of staff paying and claiming back. Details on the travel accounts page.

Booking

Call 0800 061 4661 or use the medical and accessible transport page. Tell us the appointment time, whether the return is known or open, and whether a wheelchair or an escort is involved.

Written by Umar Jahangir, who runs Hampton Travel Ltd, a Coventry City Council licensed private hire operator serving Coventry, Warwickshire and mainland UK.

Key takeaways:

• Driver, vehicle and pickup time fixed at booking, not on the morning
• Licensed private hire, not an ambulance and not CQC patient transport
• No stretcher patients and no clinical care during the journey
• Every journey logged with date, time, resident and driver for your audit trail
• Same drivers on standing arrangements, which matters most for dementia residents
• Wheelchair accessible vehicle with four-point M1 restraint
• Drivers do not lift; your trained staff or family must do any lift transfer
• Vehicles carry up to 8 passengers