The Wiscasset Ambulance Service has issues with its leadership, facility and recruitment, but residents and medical professionals like the care it provides, a consulting firm told Wiscasset selectmen on June 16.

Tideview Group recommended a series of steps to aid safety, morale and the agency’s appeal to prospective employees. Work is already under way on some of those measures, Town Manager Marian Anderson said. She praised the ambulance service for seeking the outside review of its inner workings.

“I think that we are absolutely heading in the right direction,” Anderson said. “One of the first steps in moving forward is to look at where you are.”

“As tough as this was to hear, it needed to be done,” Selectmen’s Vice Chairman Judy Flanagan said.

The service’s director of about 10 years, Roland Abbott, said in an interview after Tuesday’s meeting that it was good the issues are now out in the open. He heard the results of the firm’s review for the first time that night, and was not surprised by the findings, he said.

Personal events in the last year, including the loss of his son, have affected his work, but he is ready to work on improving the department, he said.

Asked if it was hard to listen to the firm describing the problems in leadership and other areas, Abbott said: “Hearing the truth isn’t hard.”

During the meeting, Abbott acknowledged that leadership has become an issue. When he and Anderson first talked about having an outside review done, he knew the ambulance service’s management group would take a hit, he said. “Over the last year I’ve been lacking, and I apologize for that.”

The ambulance service has already hired three more emergency medical technicians; on Tuesday, he turned in policies and procedures, he said. “I think we are moving forward. There is a good bunch of people, and I think if we all work together we’ll make the service ... better than it is.”

Beginning in January, Tideview Group reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and did more than 50 interviews, Michael Pardue of the Kennebunk-based firm said.

“One of the areas that was glaringly apparent was ... a significant lack of leadership within the organization ... There really are no policies or procedures (which are) imperative to the success of an organization,” Pardue told selectmen.

Pardue described the relationship between the director and assistant directors as strained.

“That has resulted in a level of poor, sometimes nonexistent communication, which has significantly impacted the morale of the entire organization.

“There is a high level of distrust between the director and one of the assistant directors,” Pardue continued. “During this entire process, we had meetings with both of them, individually and collectively, but that void didn’t seem to repair itself very much ... and is dangerous as far as leadership and impacting the negative feelings by many within the organization .... We can’t implore enough the importance of strengthening that relationship to show a unified approach to leadership.”

The firm also called for the ambulance service to have a vision and strategic plan that would give members something to look forward to.

“We need that to happen, for your association to be successful,” Pardue said.

Employees need goals to strive for and ways to measure their successes, Pardue said.

Fewer than half of the current roster of 24 members are active, meaning they commit to serving more than 48 hours a month, according to Tideview Group consultant Andy Turcotte. Five members live outside Wiscasset, so they aren’t as available or able to respond as quickly, Turcotte said.

Service calls are being met, Tucotte said. “But the situation remains precarious at best. Numerous times in the past year, the service nearly failed to respond due to a lack of personnel,” he said.

Wiscasset’s service can beat the national trend of rural ambulance services’ declining membership, Turcotte said.

“To do so, they must strive to be the best of the best, a (emergency medical service) is a competitive marketplace.”

Paying more might help, but is the least important factor in attracting members, the firm’s representatives said. The other, more important factors that prospective members consider are the workplace culture, leadership, and the quality of service, they said.

The ambulance station needs a ventilation system to protect the service’s members from vehicles’ fumes; and dividers, to give men and women separate spaces, although no one complained about the lack of separation, according to the firm.

Tideview Group’s representatives were encouraged by the positive feedback they said they received from the community about the ambulance service.

“You have the strong foundation (of) providing quality care, so that’s critical as you work at the other components,” Pardue said.

Residents perceived Wiscasset Ambulance Service as having in-fighting, but they viewed the service as reliable, prompt and competent; they valued having a local ambulance service, with one nurse describing that element as vital to the elderly, according to the consulting firm.