Tom Reynolds's Blog, page 2

CCTV And Drunkeness

'Male, collapsed in street - cannot see if he is breathing'.

Once more I found myself speeding towards a drunk in the street. It's *always* a drunk in the street, except of course on the one occasion when we don't whizz to scene - then they will be dead.

The Sod's Law of collapsed or deceased patients.

Like many of the drunk calls, we also had the information that 'caller will not approach patient', of course not, because the 'possibly dead' person is drunk, smelly, and possibly violent. That,...

Last Night

I recently had my last ever night shift, I would have written abut it earlier but the effects of the shift work had basically knocked me on my arse and made me incapable of doing anything except sleeping and dozing on the sofa.

It was, ultimately, a not unusual shift - no jobs that leapt out as being anything out of the ordinary.

My first job was to a woman who was intensely isolated because of her being unable to speak English, the only person she knew was her daughter who has a full time...

Done

To whom it may concern,

I wish to resign from my post as an EMT-3 in the London Ambulance Service. If possible I would like to go onto a bank contract so that I may work the occasional shift.

I would appreciate it if you could tell me my last working day as soon as possible as I am moving elsewhere in the NHS and they would like to know the earliest date that I can start.

Many thanks in advance.

Brian Kellett

-----

I handed this letter to my immediate boss today.

People who follow me on Twitter...

An Indulgence

The monster, who was once a man, sat on the bonnet of the burnt out car and looked out across the London night.

He was deciding what to do, after all immortality could get boring after a while. So he sat on the car and tried to decide whether he should let himself die.

The problem, he thought, was that with endless years the space in your mind would fill up - forgotten names, faces without names, memories blurring into one another.

It wasn't that long ago he had London in the palm of his hand...

My Intial Thoughts On the NHS White Paper.

The NHS White Paper is out and I've read pages and pages of analysis, although I'm yet to read the White Paper myself. It's sitting in my reading queue waiting to be read.

The big change is the PCTs who currently 'purchase' healthcare will go the way of the dodo to be replaced by 'consortia' of GPs. The thought being that GPs know better the needs of their community.

While I am sure that there are plenty of conscientious, well trained, thoughtful and management minded GPs out there, certainly i...

Ambopost

You would think that it is pretty obvious what us ambulance people do; pick up sick people, treat them and then take them to hospital.

If you've read this blog over the last few years you will have realised that we do much more than that.

It's why I carry a Swiss army knife, because more than once I've been called to fix something.

The other day I had one of the weirder calls, it was sent to us as 'Having heart attack because of two boxes'.

Needless to say this piqued our interest.

We arrived as s...

Airwave

It would appear that the radio system that the LAS uses has been in the news of late - claims that it doesn't work in the rain, or that vehicles are without radios.

Or vehicles use the 'Airwave' standard, a digital network shared by, amongst others, the police. We have a main set that is fixed to the ambulance and should have two handsets that we carry everywhere with us.

I can only talk personally, but in my experience the radios are often a bit flaky (but remember that this is a system that w...

Transplant

A lot of the people I follow on Twitter have been talking about #transplantweek, a way to get everyone aware of the need for organ donors.

In my years as an A&E nurse I only knew of two people passing through my doors that went on to be organ donors, helping people that they never met. Two people in many years is simply not good enough.

In my ambulance work I find myself going to dialysis wards, people who desperately need kidneys. The chairs are always full - people connected to machines that ...

Self Promotion

Di you know that both my books are still available in shops and on Amazon?

Blood, Sweat and Tea

More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea.

But did you also know you can download them for free for pretty much every platform under the sun. (And here for the sequel)

They are also now on the Apple iBook store, also for free, so if you have an iPhone or iPad you can read them on that platform as well. (And it has been downloaded quite a lot from there - a few more and I might make the top twenty f...

On How Targets Directly Screw Patient Care

So... What is it that makes an ambulance?

What sort of equipment do you think needs to be on a vehicle for it to be classed as an 'ambulance'.

You'd probably think that it would need a stretcher, a carry chair and some sort of medical equipment. Perhaps something to take blood sugars, blood pressures and tracings of your heart.

Maybe it would need something to deal with broken limbs, a board to strap you to if the crew thought that you had a broken neck and maybe even some drugs to treat...