DEFCON 4
That's it. We are now just one DEFCON* level before the "Potential Service Failure" kicks in!! It is SO busy. And I mean silly busy. I mean dear god people it's a Monday night not millennium eve busy. I mean 200 calls waiting when we started the shift at 1900 busy. I mean where calls are waiting 400 minutes for an ambulance to arrive busy. I mean hospitals diverting because they are full busy. Do you see where I'm going? BUSY!
Monday night was just ridiculous. I'm really not joking about the 200 calls waiting or the 400 minutes - it was that bad. We are simply unable to cope with amount of people requesting an ambulance. We, and the hospitals do not have the capacity to deal with the amount of people that want our attention. We are simply a sinking ship in the middle of the arctic with nothing on the horizon but a setting sun and an icy sea.
You have probably seen all over the news today (yesterday?) that the service is at "breaking point" and not to call us except in a "real emergency". We are not kidding about this. Every word is true. The reason the press have got involved is because on Wednesday night between approx 0100 and 0500 we invoked a plan call called the Extreme Over Capacity Plan.
The EOCP to us means that we are struggling to meet demand and certain things have to be put in place in order to maintain the services patient care. It means we can ensure that the most life threatening calls get an ambulance and receives treatment without waiting for hours on end. It means we are able to be a real "emergency" service.
The EOCP to you means that unless you present with a life threatening or genuinely severe problem, you won't get an ambulance. By this I don't mean that you'll have to wait ages but it'll arrive eventually, I mean our Clinical Advisors will call you up, give you other options such as making your own way, GP, Walk in centre etc and then tell you that you will NOT be receiving an ambulance. Yes it's true!
For 4 hours last night we invoked the NO SEND policy and by god were people smiling! For 4 hours the man flu, the toothaches, the cut fingers and sore eyes had to make other arrangements and we could get on with dealing with actually saving lives. Officially we could tell anyone on a Green call that no ambulance would be sent. Luckily we are not completely colour blind so the stupidly coded calls like #NOF, elderly on the floor, fitting, diabetic etc that can potentially can come out as green were still receiving ambulances but the other stuff were basically told to do what they should have done in the first place!!
This was a very extreme measure for the LAS and it wasn't a decision they took lightly. There are loads of other stages that could have been invoked but weren't. We could have allowed calltakers to tell patients they weren't having an ambulance at the end of the call but we left this up to the clinical advisors which personally I think should always be the case. I think we should leave it up to people with the ability to make a better judgement than us mere mortals. We could have got the outer county services to start pulling in their ambulances to the borders to help us out. I won't tell you what we have permission to do if thing really hit the proverbial fan but luckily we aren't at that stage yet.
So basically all I can say is PLEASE only call us in an emergency and it means that when (although I hope it isn't) you, your mum, your grandad, cousin, friend or lover really need us, we can be there and help save a life. Thank you.
*By DEFCON I actually mean REAP (Resourcing Escalatory Action Plan) of which the service has 5 levels of pressure:
1 - Routine 2 - Concern 3 - Severe Pressure 4 - Critical 5 - Potential Service Failure
Monday night was just ridiculous. I'm really not joking about the 200 calls waiting or the 400 minutes - it was that bad. We are simply unable to cope with amount of people requesting an ambulance. We, and the hospitals do not have the capacity to deal with the amount of people that want our attention. We are simply a sinking ship in the middle of the arctic with nothing on the horizon but a setting sun and an icy sea.
You have probably seen all over the news today (yesterday?) that the service is at "breaking point" and not to call us except in a "real emergency". We are not kidding about this. Every word is true. The reason the press have got involved is because on Wednesday night between approx 0100 and 0500 we invoked a plan call called the Extreme Over Capacity Plan.
The EOCP to us means that we are struggling to meet demand and certain things have to be put in place in order to maintain the services patient care. It means we can ensure that the most life threatening calls get an ambulance and receives treatment without waiting for hours on end. It means we are able to be a real "emergency" service.
The EOCP to you means that unless you present with a life threatening or genuinely severe problem, you won't get an ambulance. By this I don't mean that you'll have to wait ages but it'll arrive eventually, I mean our Clinical Advisors will call you up, give you other options such as making your own way, GP, Walk in centre etc and then tell you that you will NOT be receiving an ambulance. Yes it's true!
For 4 hours last night we invoked the NO SEND policy and by god were people smiling! For 4 hours the man flu, the toothaches, the cut fingers and sore eyes had to make other arrangements and we could get on with dealing with actually saving lives. Officially we could tell anyone on a Green call that no ambulance would be sent. Luckily we are not completely colour blind so the stupidly coded calls like #NOF, elderly on the floor, fitting, diabetic etc that can potentially can come out as green were still receiving ambulances but the other stuff were basically told to do what they should have done in the first place!!
This was a very extreme measure for the LAS and it wasn't a decision they took lightly. There are loads of other stages that could have been invoked but weren't. We could have allowed calltakers to tell patients they weren't having an ambulance at the end of the call but we left this up to the clinical advisors which personally I think should always be the case. I think we should leave it up to people with the ability to make a better judgement than us mere mortals. We could have got the outer county services to start pulling in their ambulances to the borders to help us out. I won't tell you what we have permission to do if thing really hit the proverbial fan but luckily we aren't at that stage yet.
So basically all I can say is PLEASE only call us in an emergency and it means that when (although I hope it isn't) you, your mum, your grandad, cousin, friend or lover really need us, we can be there and help save a life. Thank you.
*By DEFCON I actually mean REAP (Resourcing Escalatory Action Plan) of which the service has 5 levels of pressure:
1 - Routine 2 - Concern 3 - Severe Pressure 4 - Critical 5 - Potential Service Failure
posted by Beaker at
1:39 AM
3 Comments:
It's seriously called 'reap'?!
The idea that when the LAS is pushed the 'reap' level goes up is, well, grim.
By
Ewan, at 2:44 AM
I wish we could do that at our service as weve been seriously struggling too.
Please people its not just in london its across the country too -
well written beaker
By
Anonymous, at 9:13 PM
I worked in EOC monday and it was unbelievable. But you get satisfaction when you look at the log and see CT have told a person whos baby is teething to go to their GP or someone who has an EYELASH IN THIER EYE!!! Down to Toothache.
What gets me is when people phone and say its not an emergency but.... and when you go through KQ, they get a RED, just baffles me!
Loving this blog!
x
By
MRSQ2b, at 1:05 AM
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