Ambulance paramedics in warning over staff
PARAMEDICS are warning patients in Eastbourne will be put in 'severe danger' if untrained staff are used in place of skilled professionals.
They say changes taking place are a matter of life and death.
The paramedics and ambulance technicians spoken to by the Herald, who did not want to be named, blame a government drive to save money resulting in the ambulance service increasingly relying on lower paid staff. They also said using untrained staff helped meet government targets of reaching patients, whose lives are in danger, within eight minutes.
One ambulance technician said, "The NHS delivery of acute and emergency care by ambulance crews is amongst the best in the world. But now, unqualified, poorly trained and often direct-entry individuals who have no clinical decision-making remit are on the road in place of qualified ambulance technicians.
"The protocols we have seen state that double crewed ambulances of two entry-level emergency care support workers (ECSWs) will be an acceptable first response."
The paramedic asked, "Would you be comfortable if it was your relative receiving care from unqualified people in an emergency?"
The highly-trained ambulance staff the Herald spoke to warned that the whole of the South East Coast Ambulance (Secamb) region, which includes Sussex, Kent and Surrey, is affected as are other parts of the country.
The Herald understands that in the South West, union Unison told ambulance crews not to work with unqualified staffbecauseit would endanger qualified staff'sprofessional registration.
Emergency care support workers (ECSWs) were first introduced in September 2008 to support ambulance clinicians in their role. Figures obtained by the Herald under the Freedom of Information Act show that there were no ECSWs in Sussex this time last year but 16 by the end of 2009.
Under NHS rules, two emergency care support workers can be sent out if no other crews are available. A spokesperson for Secamb said, "Every effort is made to ensure that an ECSW is crewed with a more qualified member of staff. However, on occasions when this is not possible two ECSWs may be crewed together. In such instances they would only be used as a first response, in the same way a community first responder is used, and will always be immediately back up by higher qualified staff."
When asked for figures under the Freedom of Information Act, the ambulance service was unable to disclose on how many occasions two support workers were the first at the scene of an emergency in Eastbourne, stating it would be too time consuming and costly to gather the information.
One paramedic the Herald spoke to said, "Eastbourne only has one or two ECSWs working on shift – and possibly none on permanent staff as they may appear as relief staff as they do not have a permanently assigned base station which means they can be used wherever needed on a day to day basis.
"However, Secamb use double manned ambulances with two ECSWs frequently within the Kent operational region, which will filter across the whole SECAMB area very quickly – which is the concern."
He added, "As front-line crews, we don't have any animosity at all towards the individuals seeking to do the job of an ECSW, in fact we believe they should be given the opportunity to train properly to technician level. And remember, many of these people have no patient care experience whatsoever before going out in a blue-light ambulance. How can this be right?"
He added, "In short, the government has, without public acknowledgement or consultation, downgraded the skills available to the public when they most need them. And this from the party which announced, via Tony Blair, that every ambulance would have a paramedic on board."
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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