Fatal 4

My week off has flown by with lots of little jobs ticked off the to do list. Managed a couple of good walks while managing to dodge the rain. This week was the first Poole Quay Bike Night of the year and yes you guessed it mid afternoon the heavens opened. However it brightened up and there was a good turnout hopefully a sign of good things to come throughout the year.

As a car driver, motorcyclist and Paramedic I wear several hats but the overarching one is that we all need to be responsible for our actions on the road.

Road safety can take many forms from education to crime prevention and let's not forget not wearing your seatbelt, using a mobile phone  and speeding are crimes. You may notice I did not include drink driving in that list it seems that drink driving is far less socially acceptable.

With the nicer weather and longer days more of us will be out and about on the roads so please take care and look out for each other.

Coast to Coast

Well Easter has been and gone with a mixed bag of weather and a busy period for the NHS as a whole.

This week I have been our Operational Commander for the sector and it has seen me attending our local acute hospital trusts to manage trolley waits. I would like to say thank you to both the hospital and ambulance staff involved in dealing with this ongoing problem in a highly professional way. This joint working and professionalism ultimately benefits patients. Thank you to everyone involved.

I am looking forward to a few days off and hopefully the weather will let me get out on the motorbike and also get in a few miles of walking on the coast path.

For those of you who live inland does the coast and the sea have a huge draw for you? I am lucky to live on what I think is one of the most beautiful areas of the south coast and I never tire of the views and scenery which change with the season or more subtly every day. The SWASTFT area is bordered by the sea on three sides and as you can imagine this generates a significant work load both with incidents directly related to the coast and sea, as well as the increased population during the busy tourist seasons.

However no matter how beautiful the area seems it still hold dangers to those who visit and work here.
When you visit the coast there are lots of resources and agencies looking after you.

The Coastguard are responsible for coordinating these resources and can call on their own helicopters, mud and cliff rescue teams as well as those of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. They are also able to call on the other emergency services and volunteer agencies to provide a response. 

Locally Poole Harbour Commissioners are responsible for safety within the harbour. The harbour is busy with both commercial and leisure craft and ensuring the safety  of these often conflicting users can be difficult. They are responsible for the channel marks, pilotage of commercial vessels in and out of the harbour. They also mount regular patrols to enforce the harbour bye laws and provide safety advice to the users of harbour. They respond to emergencies and also environmental pollution issues in conjunction with other agencies.

Also patrolling the harbour and coast are the maritime section of Dorset Police again they are there to enforce the law, provide advice and detect crime, they are also available to the Coastguard to respond to incidents.

So as you can when you visit the coast there are lost of agencies looking after your safety and ready to respond to incidents.

DIY,DIY,DIY must do DIY

Easter is here and the long DIY weekend starts. How many falls from ladders and other home improvement related attendances will emergency departments see?

Locally Easter marks the traditional start of the influx of visitors to the local area. This leads to an increase in demmand on local emergency services.

These calls come when the service is already under increased demand due to increased call levels , so please think do you really need to call 999 could your problem be dealt with by a pharmacist, the local minor injuries unit or walk in centre? Please let's make sure ambulances are available for those that need them.

As I write this the clocks have gone forward British Summer Time has begun, the sun is shining the beaches are full. OH wait, a gale of wind , a hail shower and more rain on the way situation normal for a bank holiday weekend!

Lucky to have two days off this weekend and then back in tomorrow I am sure it will be a busy day but the one thing you can count on is that all of your emergency service and NHS staff and volunteers will be there to provide you the care and help you need.

Responder and Co responders gave 2009 hours of their own time yesterday to help those in need across the SWASTFT area yesterday, when you look at the bigger picture across the whole country how many hours were given by volunteers? The amount must be staggering.

I hope you enjoy what's left of the weekend and above all stay safe.

Days off

A short blog this week as I have had a few days off this week so time to get out on my motorbike , catch up with some jobs at home and enjoy a take away.

A trip up to London yesterday to collect daughter from uni combined with a visit to the London Musuem of Water and Steam a great place if you are into that kind of thing.

There have been lots of posts on social media giving great feedback on the JESIP app, if you could be involved in managing an incident well worth downloading. It gives some great information and prompts on the principles of JESIP and how they should be embedded in our practice.

Time to enjoy the rugby now.

More next week.

Busy, busy, busy

This week has seen me on nights over the weekend. Busy doesn't really sum it up!
As with all emergency services weekends bring a new set of challenges. Across the country it seems the NHS is creaking under the weight of demand put on it.
All three of my nights have been spent managing trolley waits in my local two acute hospital trusts.
Before even thinking about anything else I would like to give credit to the ambulance crews and hospital staff who have worked so hard to minimise these waits and  to continue to deliver high levels of care under difficult conditions.
So how do we solve this problem? If you can come up with an answer that does not cost money your on to a winner. Seriously though there is no magic cure , no magic wand that is going to sort these delays out. There are many systems  in place to help reduce the number of calls to ambulance services and reduce the number of patients that are conveyed to hospital emergency departments.
Do people expect to much from their ambulance services and hospitals, could their problem be dealt with by someone different. The answer is probably yes on both counts however do the public know how to access these other services , do they know that their GP surgery may be open over the weekend? Do they know that their pharmacist can help with lots of every day problems.
So how do we get those messages out there, press releases, adverts on TV and radio, social media.
As clinicians we also need to ensure we make use of the alternative pathways available to us to avoid admissions where possible.

Did someone mention social media? There are many health care professionals and organisations actively using social media to help deliver important messages to the wider community and far more use of this will be seen in the future.
This week also sees the budget and I like most of my colleagues wait to see what this will bring and the impacts it may have on us and our services.

Variety, the spice of life

Another week gone and what a busy and varied one it has been.

I spent Monday to Wednesday on day shifts as operational officer for East Dorset. This involved a variety of tasks including scene command at a RTC, attending two fires both of which were false alarms luckily, as well as responding to other incidents.

By far the majority of my time was spent dealing with ambulance delays at the two local acute hospitals. Ambulance delays impact on our ability to deliver care to the local community however the one thing that was obvious this week is the huge amount of effort that hospital staff put in to try and solve these problems.

Combined working across the whole of the hospitals and partner organisations ensures that these delays are kept as short as possible.

Today was spent carrying out a my career conversation with a member of my team and a workplace health and safety inspection. 

As you can see a varied week with a variety of challenges that what makes my job so intresting.

Interoprability

As February draws to a close I am still on target to blog at least once a week. 

After the tragic events this week at Didcot my thoughts are with all of those involved.

From a professional point of view the high level of interoperability displayed by all those involved shows that initiatives such as JESIP and regular training and exercises involving all responding agencies is working. As with the recent floods there was cross border support and mobilisation of national assets to provide support to the local resources. All of this leads to one thing that all those, responding have a single overarching aim and are well trained and experinced in interagency working.

Next week sees the largest interagency exercise ever carried out in London. Exercise Unified Response will test all of the responding agencies in both live play and command post exercise. I am sure there will be huge media coverage of this exercise and further information is available via the London Fire Brigade website.

As with all exercises and real incidents there will be joint learning taking place both during the incident and during the debriefs. It is important that lessons learned are shared to the wider responding community and the JESIP iniative to ensure this happens is a brilliant ongoing piece of work nationally.

For those of you within a category 1 or 2 responder organisation do you know what your role or responsibilty would be during a major or significant incident? Have you taken part in table top, command post or live play exercise? As I have said above regular training and exercising between responders can only lead to improved responses to incidents.