Tom Reynolds's Blog, page 7

Good News, Bad News

Good News

Patients suffering an out of hospital cardiac arrest in London now have more chance than ever before of being resuscitated by staff, according the latest Service figures.



The report, published by the Clinical Audit & Research Unit (CARU), also shows the Utstein* survival rate is up to 15.2 per cent from 12 per cent the previous year.

So, if you have a cardiac arrest in London (for certain values of cardiac arrest), you have a 15.2% chance of survival. Which is great but won't...

One Mind, One Body.

We get another one of our bog standard 'nan down' calls. An elderly person, not too spry on their feet has fallen over and needs us to come and pick them up again.

The door is opened by her son, two eyes stare at us suspiciously from over a foot long beard. A half smoked cigarette is dangling between his fingers.

'Come in then', he says gruffly then, indicating his mother's bedroom, he disappears into the living room to continue smoking.

His mother is on the floor in an awkward...

A Year Of Living Digitally

I have a feeling, somewhere deep in my urinary tract, that 2010 will be the year that I can finally live digitally. By this I mean that I can get through life without buying a physical piece of media. Be that DVD, Blu-ray, CD, Book, Magazine or any other thing that has a physical existence.

Instead I shall be surviving on a diet of purely digital media - downloads of music, films and books.

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Films

iTunes.

Music

iTunes, Amazon, Indie download services.

Books

Waterstones, Kindle store, Direct...

New Year Emergency

With New year's eve night approaching the LAS has put out it's usual call for people to be sensible.

Our head of Emergency Preparedness says this,

"Alcohol-related calls put extra pressure on the Service, so I'd ask people to be sensible. Every minute that we spend looking after somebody who is simply drunk, is a minute that could have been spent helping a patient who is seriously ill or injured. We want people to enjoy themselves, but they should think carefully before dialling 999. It...

FAIL

He's ninety years old, ex-army.

He's slipped on the ice coming out of his house, we are sent to the call as 'Fallen over, leg is at a funny angle'.

We get there, he's broken his leg all right. He's lovely, the family are lovely.

He has waited one and a half hours for an ambulance.

I am furious. He has been laying on the ice for that long without an ambulance. I've just come from the hospital - the police have been bringing in patients with possibly broken ankles because there are not enough...

What Have I Been Saying...?

I've not died - my plan was to blog at least every second day, but that has gone for a burton as my internet connection is up and down more times than a *insert metaphor*. I'm trying to get it fixed, but of course that means some time after the bloody waste of time that is Christmas.

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I must admit that I saw this on the BBC, and thought it sounded somewhat familiar.

The government has been urged to review its targets for ambulances responding to 999 calls, following claims that patient...

Tea

I've mentioned before in passing my call where I was told that 'Patient wants a cup of tea'.

An 'amber' call - lights and sirens if you please. Drive down the wrong side of the road as well.

Our 'patient' was an eighty year old woman who got up and opened the front door when we arrived. Trying to be as polite as possible I asked her what the problem was.

'My carer hasn't arrived, I need a cup of tea'.

My immediate thought was that this patient wouldn't have much problem making her own cup of ...

Eavesdropping

I find myself going to a lot of 'victims of crime' that are nothing of the sort - people who have been assaulted by 'some bloke', often 'some big black bloke' who has beaten them up for no reason whatsoever.

Now, while there is random violence and muggings on the streets of Newham and Tower Hamlets, I rarely see it - often the causes of the injury are blatantly obvious.

Normally it's gang activity, or rival drug dealers, or more often X's girlfriend has got off with Y, while X was shagging Z...

The Future

I know I moan a lot. It's one of the 'Yellow Card' symptoms of working in the NHS - not enough resources, too much in the way of demand, daft governmental interference, management who apparently have no idea what they are doing...

But, like many of us, I don't look at the good things - the things that floated on down from the future and snuck up on us.

I'm not talking about robots, space travel or meals in a pill - I'm talking about the future that has, like the water that is slowly boiling...

C&C

Once more I find myself concerned with Capacity and Consent.

Capacity and Consent are two linked words that govern how I can treat patients and it always needs to be at the forefront of my mind.

Capacity Is the ability for someone to understand what I am telling them and to be able to make a decision based on being able to understand the risks of choices that they make now.

Consent is my patient allowing me to do things to them, be that blood pressure measurements, giving them medicine or...