I've told you all many times about the 'vulnerable adult' forms that we fill in when we come across someone that is, well, vulnerable. Normally we only sometimes have feedback into any action that has been taken, so we dutifully fill them in and throw them into the ether and hope for the best.

We were sent to a man living in a warden controlled place, he'd half slipped out of bed and couldn't move. He'd pulled his emergency alarm and the duty warden had come over and had then called us.

(Don't get me started on the utter idiocy of plans to cut back on live-in wardens)

My crewmate and I both recognised the name but couldn't place it, nor, once we reached the patient could we place his face.

He was a large chap, and so we were somewhat thankful to have a student working with us who could help us get him back onto the bed so that the patient could sit up.

Dusting down the patient he told us that he didn't want to go to hospital, and seeing that he hadn't hurt himself in his slip, I couldn't really blame hime for wanting to remain in his home.

My attention was drawn to his elbow, it was red and hot and a little swollen - probably cellulitis, maybe an infected joint. It was this that had caused him to slip as he'd been unable to use his grab rail properly. Again he didn't want to go to hospital, despite me pointing out that they could treat his elbow.

Instead we settled on a compromise, I'd arrange to get the patient's GP out to see him, then if the GP thought that the elbow needed hospital treatment, and that it couldn't be treated at home, they could better browbeat the patient than a man in a green uniform with a bag full of bandages...

I went out to the ambulance to arrange this and to write up a report for the GP, and once it was arranged I went back to the patient.

The patient looked at me funny, then told me that we had met before - but then he had lived in a different home, he mentioned the street name but I didn't remember it. He told me how, soon after I'd picked him off the floor there, someone had visited him and suggested that he move to this warden controlled flat - a place he really enjoyed living in.

I left the note, bid him farewell and went back out to the ambulance.

As I got back into the ambulance my crewmate told me that she had remembered the patient. We'd been sent to pick him up off the floor, but the place where he lived was a terrible run-down place, broken windows, poor heating, no lighting and, because of the gentleman's mobility problems, he essentially lived out of one room due to the stairs being ramshackle.

I'd filled in a 'vulnerable adult' form for him after we'd picked him up.

I don't know if it was that form that got the ball rolling, but if it was then I'm exceptionally happy - living in the warden controlled flat has meant that he keeps his independence, yet has the care and help that he needs. I'm a big fan of warden controlled flats and, should I manage to live that long, I wouldn't mind ending up in one of them should I need to.

So, a bit of a success story.

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I think i have an iTunes problem - my library has gotten so large it will no longer fit on a 500Gb external disc. So I'm currently copying all 500Gb onto a shared USB 1Tb disk using my Mac mini/media server.


A long copy

It may take some time.