She sits there, quietly she tells me about what has happened. She describes one of the worst things one human being can do to another. She's reliving it for me.

I shouldn't be here.

I should be waiting outside, waiting for the police to arrive to make sure that the scene was safe.

But as I sat outside with the message on my screen saying 'police have no units to send' all I could think of was her, alone in the house. Or with the person who did this to her.

So we went in.

As she tells me what happened my crewmate is in the room next door playing with her child, her child who seems thankfully ignorant of what has happened.

When I've been to a job like this before the police have always been there first, today I'm there first. I'm the first authority face that she sees.

So she unburdens herself onto me, there is nothing I can say to make things better, all I can do is offer her someone to listen to and a promise that the police will arrive soon.

But it can't be soon enough.

I've spoken before on the 'Connecting for Health' IT project, its something that frankly gives me the willies; a huge database of all your medical details that has shockingly bad security measures.

(I've spoken to people working on the system, and trust me, it's horrendously insecure).

They are having a consultation process on the use of your medical information, which you can take part in on-line.

NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH) is conducting a consultation with the public and healthcare professionals on the use of patient information for purposes such as health research and managing and planning care.

The health and well-being of the population can be improved by activities such as medical research, disease surveillance, screening, needs assessment and preventative activities.

NHS CFH is keen to obtain the views of the general public, patients and other interested parties on how patient information held by the NHS should be used for additional purposes such as research.

I suggest that everyone in the UK has a look at it.

From the Open Rights Group mailing list I'm part of, someone has made the following point.

Note that the survey more than once claims that patients have no legal right to control information they have given the NHS about themselves once it has been anonymised.

As a matter of law this is nonsense.

Information given in confidence may not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it was supplied unless the supplier consents, and this is not changed by removing the supplier's name. So I hope responders will challenge this (and perhaps also the blithe claim that
anonymisation only fails in the case of people with very rare diseases, which greatly understates the risk that an aggregation of conditions,
dates and places will identify someone just as plainly as a name and address).

This is just exactly the sort of function creep that I mentioned in the previous post, please go and have your own say about your data being used in this fashion.

Oh, and you folks do me proud. If anyone else wants to join up (I do recommend it, I'm a proud supporter, and you can see the sorts of bright people we have involved) you can find out more here. These folks do good work that you can help support for less than the price of two pints of lager.

A paramedic who tackled a wheelchair-bound gunman has been hailed a hero.
Garry Perkins was honoured for his bravery by a crown court judge after he and a colleague came face-to-face with the armed man during a routine call-out.
But when they arrived at the house the two paramedics found Ian Wilson, who has no legs, sitting in his wheelchair asking for morphine.
But while Mr Perkins called the man’s GP, he noticed a gun on a radiator.
He said: “We both saw it and looked at each other, then the man produced a gun from down the side of his wheelchair and pointed it at John, smiling.

Myself? I would have either thrown him the drugs and told him to take them all at once - then call out the armed police, or just run.

That the man was in a wheelchair is neither here nor there, you can shoot from a wheelchair as numerous paralympic medal-winners have shown. I've also known wheelchair users who have run quite successful drug dealing businesses.

I particularly like one of the comments left on the site that says,

I have had the dubious 'pleasure' of having met Mr Wilson as a result of my job, and although on the face of it, it is hard to believe that a man with no legs, and confined to his wheelchair could be a threat to anyone,believe me he is a very threatening, aggressive and thoroughly odious little man. Good work from the Paramedics.

Just a snapshot of the sorts of things we can walk into.

Many thanks to the reader who sent me this story.

Sometimes you are grateful for the drunk that has been getting progressively more intoxicated through the duration of your shift. As you drive past him on the way to the hospital you wave at each other for nearly twelve hours.

Then, as a final job of the shift for both you and the police, he tries to get up, falls over and gets a massive bump on the head.

He's not aggressive and his timing is perfect, both you and the police get off shift on time for a change.

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Also - sometimes short little random thoughts let you have time in your real life to get some real life concerns sorted out, although doing it for more than a week would be tiresome.

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Our Control was asking for an ambulance for a stabbing on our patch while we were on our way, under blue lights, to a twenty six year old with indigestion. So it goes.

After going to the umpteenth person who answers in the negative when I ask, "Have you tried taking a painkiller?", I would suggest that if people were to take a painkiller, my workload would be halved.

And after last night, a drop of antacid for indigestion might be handy as well.

But that way lies madness, for soon I'll expect people to be able to put a sticking plaster on themselves next.

In the eyes of the government this is a 'successful' job.

For the patient, for the parents, for the staff involved, for everyone that matters - this is not a successful job.

If ambulance services weren't chasing government targets then this may well have been a 'unsuccessful' job for the government - but a success for everyone else.