Dear frontline ambulance colleagues

After 12 years of responding to 999 calls and subsequently watching from the sidelines as family and friends continue to do so, I am only too aware of the ever increasing pressures and the ongoing erosion of the ambulance clinicians' lot. Poor staff support from within ambulance organisations and the lack of comprehension from government (most recently exemplified by Jeremy Hunt's 'ambulance driver' comment) continues to frustrate me as I'm sure it does you.

I'm grateful for the opportunity the Broken Paramedic web presence gives me, allowing me to keep in touch with the mindset of many of my fellow clinicians on various issues that bubble up in the mainstream media. Thank you for contributing. For the most part, this level of interaction helps me to consider perspectives I might otherwise not have considered, which in turn informs many of the conversations I have with journalists who occasionally contact me for advice and PR-free clarification (not that this relationship moderated the misguided vitriol of certain Mail Online journalists, but lesson learned).

However, when it comes to certain issues, I can't help but notice that there's a degree of misinformation and prejudice which colours some of your responses.

For example, a comment received in regard to my recent employment as a 111 clinical advisor was as follows:

"...Unfortunately, the reality is that you and your colleagues will routinely pass calls to the ambulance service that are nowhere near that serious and you all know it. I think it's fair to say that 111 is despised by many of those in the ambulance service. You're so risk adverse, it's pathetic... Personally I don't know how some of you sleep well at nights having passed the absolute dross you do to us."

Ouch.

In defence of this unnecessarily personal attack, from my own frontline experience I recall how angry I would get when yet another fatigue-inducing shift seemed to have been made all the worse by needless, time-wasting call-outs. I would frequently demonise what was then NHS Direct and also my own service's dispatch staff. Today, it's the medical advice line, NHS 111, which is perceived by many to be a root cause of unbridled ambulance service demand. Discontent under pressure breeds interdepartmental animosity, it seems.

As I've mentioned previously, last year I took up a post as clinical advisor at Hertfordshire's 111 service, a decision I took both out of professional curiosity and financial necessity. I can report the last six months has been a largely positive experience; I once again have the opportunity to directly help those in need and to make more constructive use of my knowledge and experience. Furthermore, it has given me a fantastic vantage point to see the difficulties facing healthcare provision - and they are manifold.

As such, I would like to take the opportunity to address some of your concerns and criticisms in the hope that you consider my viewpoint that NHS 111 is not quite the misguided, incompetent debacle some would like to paint it as. To this end, I have put together a few key facts and 'mythbusters' that might help the likes of Anonymous Angry Commenter above.

One caveat is that my experiences are exclusively based on my time at Herts Urgent Care in Hertfordshire and it should be noted that not all 111 providers have the same resources or working practices. Indeed, Herts Urgent Care tends to perform better than most in the national figures and I do not currently have access to the information to explain any disparity. Further, I don't have the number-crunching resources of the Office for National Statistics and all figures cited have been pruned from sources linked at the foot of this article.
Article From: http://brokenparamedic.blogspot.com/