'Risking a baby's life for lunch'

Super sleuth Richard’s article

I read this and it made me grumpy. But, I am biased. I doubt very much it bears much resemblance to the truth, but non the less, it raises the issue of breaks for emergency staff. Should an hard working ambulance worker not be entitled to a true break from work because ‘it puts lives at risk’? Or should they be stood down regardless of demand? Should they be paid or unpaid for their break? Don’t pay them and you can stretch their 37.5 hour week further… Pay them and you can insist that they remain on station and available to respond to ‘life threatening’ (ha!) calls. What’s the answer, STW massive?

What’s the answer, STW massive?

More emergency staff to provide full cover, with breaks.

Missus has the same kind of issues as a hospital doctor. She is diabetic and at times she needs to eat or she will go hypo.

Taken her years to have the courage to do that though, because they are always busy and there is always another patient to see.

As you said, I think the answer is to take anything written in the Express with a pinch of salt.

The fact that noone else was available to respond is what’s wrong. I’m 100% sure that if the crew having lunch knew about the emergency they would have dropped their lunch and went.

More emergency staff to provide full cover, with breaks.

This, of course.

More emergency staff to provide full cover, with breaks.

Smashing. Can’t afford it. Now what?

Or you could force them to work 12 hours straight, flat out, with no breaks. The baby would be saved, but then through exhaustion, they’d lose concentration and crash the ambulance into a bus stop killing dozens.

Smashing. Can’t afford it. Now what?

We can afford it – the government (and by extension, “we”) just have to be willing to pay for it.

It’s silly really – he only mentions as an aside at the bottom, that they never got the call by control, it was control that didn’t pass it through due to a policy on breaks. It isn’t anything like the first bit of the article, that a load of medics were hanging around listening as calls came through about it.

Ambulances respond to emergencies, kind of by definition. If you say that they should stop their breaks when there is an emergency, then they most likely aren’t going to get any breaks in a lot of shifts. It isn’t safe for anyone to have someone looking after them and driving them around who hasn’t had a break for 11 hours.

Obviously there are different levels of emergency, and they have various categorisations of them (and associated response time targets), but even then, they would still quite likely never get a break if they only took top category calls on break. So the only logical thing to do is to not put through calls while staff are on breaks, and to provide adequate cover for staff on breaks.

It’s just a sign of the ambulance service being chronically underfunded. The fire service is pretty well funded, police emergency services are not too bad for money, but the ambulance is so piss takingly underfunded it is amazing what they manage with the money. Or at least that’s how it was a few years back when I was involved with the three lots. That’s why the ambulance guys have been on the forefront of things like off-base stationing during shifts (that is why you often see an ambulance sitting at some rubbish petrol station on a city ring road or similar waiting for a call; they station ambulances at points off their home base so that they are closer to where a call is most likely to come from), whereas the fire service have managed to keep things station based.

Couldn’t agree more GrahamS in a that’s the big issue kind of way. However that doesn’t solve the problem for the management and road staff of a hard pushed ambulance trust, under pressure from all angles. Any ‘real world’ ideas?

So nobody ever works through their lunch in case of “emergency” at work? I’d like to know whether the ambulance staff were even given the option or if the controller decided union rules prevail (I once saw a tube driver nearly lynched for going for breakfast after a 30-minute delay because it was “the rules”).

Generally if they actually chose a butty over attending a heart attack I’d be shocked. But given it’s the express AND Richard, I’m going to suspect it’s not the case. Reading the above… seems that they never got the message.

Bravo Richard. Bravo.

I’m guessing someone wants a job at the Daily Mail.

It isn’t safe for anyone to have someone looking after them and driving them around who hasn’t had a break for 11 hours.

Haha, very true, but you wouldn’t believe how much this happens… To take a break on station, first you have to get to station…

controller decided union rules prevail

Oi! Who said ANYTHING about union rules? If anyone is fishing for a job at the daily fail its you with that right wing propagandaist bullshit. Actually the break policy was imposed by a management trying to get maximum value from 37.5 he’s a week by paying 11.25 hours instead of 12 per shift. Quite a capitalist, right wing thing to do?

Real world answer – flexible working by ambulance crews*. Take lunch and breaks when they are not on a call out? I can’t imagine that all ambulances and crews are responding to emergencies all the time.

There are a few paramedics on here? When do they have breaks?

*I imagine they do this already otherwise they would starve and people would be dying at 12.00 everyday.

Any ‘real world’ ideas?

Other than the obvious funding solution, there is a potential solution to this kind of case, which is to offer multiple breaks with the proviso that any break may be disturbed for a top category emergency, and schedule calls accordingly, on the hope that at least on of the breaks does not coincide with there being a top category emergency with no other responder available. You’d have to run the stats on that from past incident history to calculate how many breaks you’d need to offer and how long, but I imagine it would be pretty easy to work out if it was a goer. The problem being that it would inevitably have a bad effect on response times to lower category emergencies, meaning they might be worse by the time someone got there, leading to the inevitable press stories ‘man with broken and bleeding leg has to have it amputated after ambulance takes an hour to arrive’, or mis-categorisations: ‘man with heart attack dies after person on phone thinks it was probably nothing serious’. It might have an effect as to control room categorisation also – if people knew that by going category B, they’d be putting people in for a long wait, they might be more likely to push people up to A if they were uncertain.

It also depends a lot on what particular target culture is in fashion at the moment – if you’re on targets for Cat A and Cat B, clearly that solution would have a big negative effect on Cat B, for a potential improvement on your cat A targets. And picking up your non-life threatening’s later might increase the numbers of those who had complications once you got them into A+E. All in all it is a bit depressing really.

Its not safe for any medical person to be looking after people without a break. Thankfully my Wife has just left a ward where the shift was officially anyway 12.5 hours, possibly with a 5 minute break.

**** hell now that has got me **** fuming, I will not post a response on this thread as it’s unprofessional of me but that guy should find the truth out. What a **** ….

Aside from the fact that the Express is like the Mail and the Sun had babies and should therefore be treated with the scepticism one normally reserves for homeopathy,

Is it a particularly good idea to have emergency medical staff working long hours without food or breaks? Next thing we’ll be reading is “man dies due to overworked paramedic being unable to concentrate properly”.

Damned if you do, etc.

Wife’s ward has double shifts of just under 15 hours with 90 minutes of unpaid breaks if they can get them. From a value for money point of view it suits the Trust as each nurse cover 6 shifts per week rather than 5 and is actively encouraged. Each ward could, if all staff agreed to this pattern, lose 2,3 or more nurses – just think of the efficiency savings.

Suits a lot of staff too cos they get more days off.

to offer multiple breaks with the proviso that any break may be disturbed for a top category emergency,

See this is what used to happen, (with the exception of the multiple bit, it was one 30mins break in 12hr shift) but then the management saw how many extra shifts a month they could put out if they only paid staff 11.25 hrs per shift instead of 12 hrs… Now, staff can still volunteer to be available for eleven IRS during their break, but cannot be required to do so. And they only get paid if they are actually used. So some chose to pop to the bank, do their shopping, or just plain rest for 45 minutes during what can be an extremely busy often 13+ hour shift.

Oi! Who said ANYTHING about union rules? If anyone is fishing for a job at the daily fail its you with that right wing propagandaist bullshit.

I did. Keep up. I’m not saying it was the case but having seen plenty of people knock off when there’s a compelling reason not to because that’s the union rules (I’ve worked in several unionised workplaces). The key point was whether they didn’t get the message. Which they didn’t.

Its not safe for any medical person to be looking after people without a break. Thankfully my Wife has just left a ward where the shift was officially anyway 12.5 hours, possibly with a 5 minute break.

Sounds like my wifes ward.

There are a few paramedics on here? When do they have breaks?

I can’t speak for the guys at other trusts but at mine, we don’t!
I can’t remember the last time I had a break when I was doing an ambulance shift, at a guess I’d say that the last three months I did on a truck I never got a break.

Madeley’s just proved himself to be a ****, he needs to try researching things before he puts it in one of his articles.

I did. Keep up I MADE IT UP

OK, ta. Fixed it for you.

Madeley’s just proved himself to be a ****,

Judging by the feedback, he doesn’t seem to be getting a great deal of support for his article.

Twitter; Richard Madeley eats his words
Hmmmm. Damage is probably done but chapeau Mr Madeley for realising and admitting that he made a mistake. Couldn’t see Clarkson doing that. Will read the promised corrective article with interest…

EDIT; Whoa meehaja, what do you want, a medal? Oh, you already got one… Lol. Seriously though, good post, agree and kinda highlights the stresses the Trusts are under, yet they keep sending out cars and trucks to rubbish. Something’s got to give; what you describe is neither safe nor fair.

From Dr Richard’s article on what 999 calls could be left…

A broken leg, I suppose. It’s not going to get any more broken. A chronic nosebleed, perhaps. I can’t recall reading about anyone actually dying from a nosebleed.

Genius! So because a daytime TV presenter hasn’t been on the receiving end (what a surprise) of limb threatening fractures, or shock-inducing epistaxis, and because he can’t imagine they ever could be serious, means they don’t happen…!!
(I appreciate this isn’t the original point, but stupidity like this really defers from any other ‘facts’ he may put into his ‘study’…)

On point – humans need to eat. Humans in stressful, physical roles, should eat and drink regularly.
The skill is deciding when this is appropriate, or when it isn’t.

Unfortunately, I can completely see the current demand on the NHS/Emergency servicing being such that, unless there is a rota’d/structured break, it simply ain’t gonna happen by chance…

DrP

When Mrs sog was taken bad, the two guys at base left their break to help the paramedic on scene. Thanks, guys.

I wonder if Mr Madeley has ever worked twelve-hour shifts.

I wonder if Mr Madeley has ever worked twelve-hour shifts. for a living?

Just saying…

you will find your lunch time is not included in your pay

Surely to qualify as the ‘Nations favourite TV Couple’…….. you shows rating need to have not tumbled to 11,000 viewers before your programme got binned three and half years ago

you will find your lunch time is not included in your pay

In the Ambulance trust I work for, it used to be, so that this sort of thing could be avoided, but it isn’t any more, as a cost cutting measure.

Is there much competition for “nation’s favourite TV couple”?

Unfortunately, I can completely see the current demand on the NHS/Emergency servicing being such that, unless there is a rota’d/structured break, it simply ain’t gonna happen by chance…

Sadly, as far as I can see, it’ll only get worse before it gets better.
Our lot have been panned by the press this weekend for offering control staff £250 bonuses to try and refer more calls to NHS redirect or walk in centres. They’re offering frontline staff double and treble time to cover extra vehicles and they still can’t cover them. Realistically the meal break issue is getting bumped further and further down the list of problems needing fixed. I can’t see how they will solve the problem without more staff or lower call volumes, neither if which the seem able to do.

Is there much competition for “nation’s favourite TV couple”?

I vote for Ant and Dec, personally…

Up here in Scotchland we used to do a 40 hour week of which 2.5 hours was unpaid.
This meant that the 2.5 hours was our own and unless we took a small additional annual payment of £250 so they could intterupt our breaks to attend jobs.
Thing is, most of us remember a time when you wouldnt get any break in a shift (albeit probably an eight hour one give or take an hour or two of unpaid OT) so the majority of folk didnt take the payment and couldnt be belled out during breaks.
The sad incident in Tomintoul (remember- the one where a techy was hung out to dry and the service only apologised after the desceased pt’s family asked for the call transcript to be released that showed he wasnt asked to attend the call 3 blocks away) prompted the Scottish Govt to step in and reduce our working week to 37.5 hours inclusive of breaks.
Sounds great, means we’re getting paid for our breaks- but the reality is that we have our breaks constantly interrupted or dont get them at all- especially on the nightshift when tehres a lot less resources.. we’re not supposed to carry any food in the wagons never mind anything hot..
And now apparently we’re talking about cutting shifts because an outside firm are optima-tistically telling us that thanks to their amazing algorythm that can predict when and where a 999 will come in we wont need as many staff- or as we call it, cost cutting.
Sheesh.
(Sorry to go on- those in the job will know how frustrating things are at the mo).
Edit- I really could go on and on, and on. But whats the point?

Unfortunately the press always portray us as sitting around with a cup of tea and chip butty, too lazy to bother to turn out to the dying baby. The reality in most urban areas is that crews do back to back emergencies all shift, every shift, and the rest break is the only way they will see food, drink, and 30 minutes downtime. No crew I know would knowingly ignore a genuinely life threatening call, but
1) Crews stood down for break will never know the call is in progress, and
2) A significant majority of ‘top priority’ calls are nothing of the sort in reality, making it very difficult to create a system where you could be activated for the truly needy.

Tom (just crawling out of my pit after 14 hour shift……)

Althepal; hope you don’t mind me asking, do you get a spoilt meal break payment if you are turned out from a break? Like the old Whitley council arrangements?

Don’t really want to start an argument Al but I thought you’d excepted a change of conditions offered to you?

We get 2 30 min breaks in a 12 hour shift, we can’t be disturbed so hear nothing of any calls nearby us. We have certain times to have these in and if we miss that time we get a £5 payment for missing them. I come from an time where we didn’t get paid breaks and accepted it was part of m role. Those days were very different to now were there’s hardly a crew that isn’t out all shift every shift and finishing late on nearly all those. The days when we got paid breaks well those were different even the busy stations at the time use to get back to station for a break, that just wouldn’t happen now.