Shropshire safety worries over kits for paramedics
Tuesday 7th December 2010, 11:29AM GMT.
Ambulance chiefs have withdrawn personal issue emergency response bags from paramedics in Shropshire because of safety fears.
But an online campaign has been launched in Shropshire to try overturn the decision of the West Midlands Ambulance Service. It is claimed that the bags, which contain items such as a stethoscope, blood pressure kit and various drugs,have helped off-duty paramedics save lives on “numerous occasions”.
The issue of the bags to individual staff in Shropshire was stopped prior to the regionalisation of ambulance services in 2006.
However those who already had one were allowed to keep them. The campaign has been launched by former Shrewsbury ambulance technician Steve Jetley.
He has set up a new website – www.paramedic247.co.uk – to highlight his campaign and includes a poll in which people can register their support for paramedics keeping the kit.
Mr Jetley, who resigned from the ambulance service and helped to lead the fight to save the Shropshire emergency control centre, says on his website: “These bags contain vital life-saving equipment and drugs, and are maintained meticulously by most paramedics.
“They are typically carried in the car or kept at home when the paramedic is off-duty. Having these kits with them at all times allows paramedics to save lives 24-7.”
He says over the years the bags have helped off-duty paramedics save lives on “numerous occasions”.
The ambulance service said to suggest that the decision had anything to do with cost was “unequivocally wrong”.
It said that concerns had been growing about the safety of bags for some time and a number of audits had been carried out over recent months.
“Unfortunately, on almost every occasion, problems have been identified,” said the statement. “These include the storage of out of date drugs, concerns over infection prevention and control issues and the carrying of unauthorised equipment. Each has a patient safety risk.
“These concerns were raised with staff but the most recent audit of eight bags found the vast majority failed to comply with trust guidelines.
By Dave Morris
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Pathetic will firefighter’s be asking to take their hoses home next
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No. But they won’t be removed from their sheds either so that they CAN’T put out a fire even if they want to!
Paramedics WANT to keep their kit with them. It allows them to fulfil their duty of care to patients as per JRCalc guidelines at all times.
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Pasco -
Are you really that ignorant?
THEY CARRY THE KITS TO SAVE LIVES
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So captain your happy to be injected with out of date drug’s by some superhuman paramedic that just happens to drive by at 3 in the morning when you have driven over the top of wenlock edge.not so sensible and totaly ignorant me thinks.
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so if these were last issued in 2006 surely the drugs in them now will be out of date?
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No. It is the responsibility of all Paramedics to check that the drugs are in date or replace them with new stock as appropriate. SOmething that that vast majority of them do diligently. However – if I was suffering from anaphylaxis I would rather be treated by out of date drugs than none at all. The drug MAY be less effective, but at least it would have SOME effect.
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so you say by giving out of date drugs is better than no drugs at all surely these drugs have a shelf life after witch they are not effective, so you could be giving someone poison.
Where do the paramedic get these drugs to replace the out of date ones? do they go to the local station and take them out of the drug cabinet, is that not stealing?
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Paramedics can go to a supervisor and can stock up the bags with drugs after providing evidence that they have been used. They save lives.
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Did they carry out an audit on all the ambulances in WMAS to find all the out of date stuff on there at the same time?? Before regionalistion, Shropshire had a policy of sealed, tagged and dated drugs boxes to prevent use of out of date drugs. This policy was binned by WMAS!!
Paramedics, as registered professional with the Health Professions Council, have to maintain their personal kit (@pasco999 I had to purchase my own stethoscope for £80 when I started, firefighters have all their personal kit isued!!). If they fail to do this they should be reported to the HPC. It’s not surprising that WMAS don’t know this as NOT ONE of the board from CEO down has ever been a paramedic (they even have difficulty holding on to their medical directors!!)
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Random check done by a Paramedic on the kit in an ambulance as an experiment showed drugs significantly out of date. Their conclusion – by management logic he should now trash the bag and drive the ambulance into a field and torch it.
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sour grapes me think have you not had trouble in the past with wmas
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See reply below – hope that answers your concerns.
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If it’s for your own use you should have paid for it.If it’s for use in you job wmas should pay for it or you don’t do the job.I look at the wmas website quite often and their self praise leads me to think they are the only emergency service in shropshire.
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I’m sorry, did I read that right, encouraging a Paramedic to use out of date drugs? You have just lost any credibility you had. have you not answered the issue by that admission that there may well be widespread bad practice going on and that the public is at risk as a result? They take them home and in the car, so they are taking bags into peoples houses, hospitals, getting them covered in blood and vomit, then taking them home getting dog hair all over them and then bringing back them back to work, with said blood and vomit and dog hair and taking the bag into a poorly persons house? Lost the arguement there I’m afraid..
Sounds like you have an axe to grind Mr J, what’s the previous issue with WMAS?
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Firstly I wasn’t encouraging them to use out of date drugs – I simply said that I would rather have those than none at all – and you may be interested to know that Dr Harsha Karlyawasam at the foods matter conference in June expressed exactly the same thing – and seeing as he is a renowned expert in this field there is some medical basis for my preference!
Secondly – I suggest you compare response bags that are on ambulances (in constant use 24hrs a day) with those that are personal issue and taken home and maintained by most paramedics. I know which I’d rather be treated by.
Thirdly, I don’t have any axe to grind with WMAS until they do things that I (and many serving members of WMAS) believe puts lives at risk. At that point I have a very big beef with them.
However, I am in the fortunate position that I can speak out and say what I like, as i no longer work for them. My ex-collegues on the other hand fear for their jobs if they comment publicly – so on some occasions i do it for them.
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So Steve Jetley is accused of having an axe to grind with WMAS – if that’s true good for him!
Everything I’ve read from him suggests that he knows what he’s on about, which is more than can be said for those who decided we should have a regional ambulance service (or more to the point, a regional control centre).
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Thanks for the reply, I’m just a humble coach builder and would love to be blessed with the required intellignece to be a part of the medical services. I do however have my own personal issue tools (purchased myself) and whilst I appreciate that I look after them more as they are mine, I dump them in the garage every night and then take them back to work the next having thought nothing more about them and if you can assure me that Paramedics do nothing more than that, I’d be very surprised. They are human at the end of the day and having looked into this in a bit more detail, aren’t they obliged to have a heart monitor attached prior to the administration of drugs anyway, which they wouldn’t have at home or in their car so in fact there is no need whatsoever for personal bags as they aren’t allowed to carry drugs anyway! First aid kit yes, but surely that is also supplied as part of the ambulance kit..
My issue with yours and Dr Karlyawasam (food hygeine)is that items have an out of date stamp for a reason and I as a paying member of the public, expect in date drugs. I’m happy to eat an out of date yoghurt or old wine when I’m healthy, but if I’m really unwell and needs drugs, I want the good stuff, not the crud out of some bag that has not been looked after..
as for the control room, isn’t shropshire performing better both operationally and control room wise since it moved??? in the height of recession I think your expectations of a “business” are too high if you think that they can have ineficient parts to the service.
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If only that were true. In reality the service lurches from one mishap to the next due to one thing, staff are no longer allowed to use common sense but MUST follow the rules no matter how ridiculous.
For example, (based on a real job) an ambulance not too long ago somewhere in WMAS was diverted from a Category B call to a Category A call. Not surprising? It is when you know that the Cat B was a person with serious traumatic injuries, and the Cat A was a person sat in a doctor’s waiting room with a pain in their chest they’d had for 2 weeks and the GP (who didn’t think it was anything serious) wanted them taken to hospital for a few checks!! The cynical amongst us believe this trick is pulled because most GPs have a defibrillator in the surgery, and so the Cat A target is automatically met. But the system in Dudley will not allow the controllers to have an ambulance running to a Cat B while there is an outstanding Cat A, they try their best but they are not allowed.
Althought this is slightly off subject, it is an example of how things in WMAS, and most other services run, and why you shouldn’t always believe what you are told!! There are lies, damned lies and statistics. And there are a lot of statisticians in WMAS!!
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