For the first time *ever*, ambulance crews are going to have rest breaks.

For too long we have been working 12 hours a day without a break.  Sure, we may be able to sneak a cup of tea at hospital, but if you take longer than half an hour to unload patient, handover to nurse, clean and restock the ambulance and finish your paperwork so that the patient can’t sue you, then we often get asked if we could ‘green up’ for another call.  Trust me when I say that it can easily take longer than half an hour to do all the above.

We rarely get to see our station, too many people call us and we simply don’t have enough ambulances to deal with all the drunks, cut fingers and coughs and colds that we get sent to.

European legislation means that we should all get a short ‘rest break’.  If you work for 12 hours, is it really too much to ask for a half hour break at some point?

Apparently it is too much to ask for ‘The Sun’.

Some journalist, who can no doubt have plenty of cups of tea during her day, decides to attack our service for (a) following the law, and (b) treating it’s staff like human beings who need feeding and watering.

It can be hard work on an ambulance, while a lot of our work is fairly simple, there are days when, not only are you run ragged, but you also have a string of tricky jobs.  Why shouldn’t we be like everyone else and get a break.  The police have meal-breaks, nurses have meal-breaks, doctors have meal-breaks and the fire service have meal-breaks (if I were being uncharitable I say that the fire service have occasional breaks in their meals for work).

So why should we be any different?

We make enough sacrifices for this job – shift work knocks years off your life, wrecks your health and social life.  We go into dangerous situations on a daily basis, get beaten up and sit in enclosed spaces with infectious patients.  We also don’t get paid enough considering how the government keeps expecting us to hold together the tatters of the NHS.  Until we got breaks we would also be eating unhealthily, wolfing down fast food between jobs, so physical fitness is a concern for us – gym memberships are a waste of money when you work half the time they are open.

So ‘The Sun’, rag that it is, wants us to work like robots.  Instead they should ask why, despite meeting targets,despite an annual increase in calls, despite being told we should cover the shortfall in GPs and A&Es the government has taken money away from us.  Ask why we can’t have more ambulances?  Ask why we have to go to people who have stubbed their toe, got a wart on their foot or have ‘man-flu’?  Ask why, after dark, it’s us and the A&E departments against the world as all the psychiatric teams, social workers and care home staff vanish along with the sun.

Maybe that would be proper journalism.

I’m already hearing about crews getting abused due to this article, one person reports being shouted at while having a sandwich, while another received abuse from a patient with a cut finger (needing only a plaster) – all because they think we should be running around ‘saving lives’.  It only needs someone to abuse me on this subject and they would get a lecture on how you shouldn't believe everything that you read in your chip wrapper.

In reality meal-breaks won’t make much difference in responding to emergency calls, it just means that the ‘stubbed toe brigade’ will have to wait half an hour for their free taxi to hospital, while true emergency calls will be covered as well as they are at present.  Being able to have a protected break may also mean crews will  be refreshed, meaning that they will ‘green up’ that bit faster, improving our response to those genuine calls.

I’ve been using Twitter a fair bit these days, it’s an interesting web-app that may well have…

Well, why tell you here when I have my shiny new blog to fill.

However, this belies the beauty of it. Once you have added a few friends (and more and more people are signing up as this meme spreads), then the inflow of short messages become like a Zen cloud of how people are feeling.

Here is the deal – on this blog I shall continue to write about ambulance work and the like.  I’ll keep up the normal posting frequency (when I have inspiration).  ‘Mental Kipple’ will be for anything that isn’t connected to ambulance work.  It’s somewhere for me to fool around, write about the things that interest me outside of the ambulance world and to let me practice different forms of writing.

It will let me keep this site ‘pure’, so that folks can’t moan when I post about things unrelated to ambulance work.

Lets see if I get bored after three months.

I'm reliably informed that this job came out as 'Man knocked down'. It's a big fear that we all have that we get attacked while going about our work and it is for this reason that we will hold back and wait for the police if a job seems 'dodgy'. The problem is that sometimes you have no idea that there is a danger in the area.

My thoughts are with those affected by this, both the man who was killed, and the others who have been hurt. I hope the crew involved aren't badly hurt and I wish everyone a speedy recovery.

The health secretary admitted there would be difficult decisions to be taken on staffing, because "some parts of the NHS in England have taken on too many doctors and nurses".

Good grief, Hewitt is bonkers.

I'm beginning to think that 'Care in the Community' for our mentally ill has gone a bit too far when one of them has become Secretary for Health.

NHSBlogDoc is as incredulous as I am.

The BBC are very nice people.

A little walk down a few canal paths took me from the hotel in which I was staying to the hotel where the 'Medical Day' talk was taking place. Along the way I took a few pictures of swans and boats and the like. I am such a tourist.

There were around thirty writers/producers there and we were to listen to a number of talkers, myself being one of them.

The first talker was presenting a piece of BBC research, it was the distillation of a number of focus groups about what the people of the UK were most worried about. Some interesting views that were obviously media led, but in my experience have little basis in reality.

The second talk was from a Bristol psychiatric liaison nurse explaining his role. For those that are familiar with Casualty, this is the role taken by the character 'Abs'. It was a very entertaining and useful talk, and would be something that I'd like the local hospitals in London to be able to see. He highlighted a lot of the problems that psychiatric services have with A&E departments and wasn't afraid to criticise others when warranted.

Then it was time for my chat - while the others had Powerpoint presentations for their talks, I had a scrap of paper - I have a distinct dislike of Powerpoint unless it is full of pictures of flying dogs and kittens in chocolate boxes. The session was a bit of a two-way conversation between myself and the audience, which was something I was hoping for. For the writers to get the most out of the session I thought it important that they could ask the questions that they wanted answering, while at the same time I could bring new aspects of ambulance care to their attention.

Then lunch where I had a very enjoyable chat with a high-up producer and some writers. While aware that they are producing a drama, rather than a purely accurate recreation of life in A&E, I told them about some of the things that make us people who do it in real life groan. It was a good chat because I learnt a little about how the TV programme is written and produced, and how it differs from the American way of doing things. All very interesting and I appreciated them taking the time to explain things to me. Then I was given a stack of my books to sign, the department had bought twenty copies of my book. My bank manager thanks all you TV license payers.

Then a taxi to the Casualty studios which is situated in an industrial estate and doesn't look at all how you would expect it from the outside. Taken under the wing of a lovely PA, I had a period of disconnect when I walked in and saw the extras sitting around. Here were large numbers of people dressed as nurses and paramedics, but they were all actors! The costumes, hair and similar were all extremely convincing, even the two police officer leading someone off in cuffs during the scene had the same tired look as all the real police I know. I felt like I wanted to talk to the paramedics sitting at the table to ask them what the work was like in Bristol...

The set itself is superb, it really does look real. The ceiling tiles are the same, the equipment is the same and there is even the little bits of detritus that gather in real A&E departments. The trollies (probably disused trollies taken from a real A&E) were, while old, the exact trollies I used to use. They were also bashed around in the same way that real trollies are. The only real difference is that the fake department has more blankets and pillows than a real A&E.

Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take any pictures... perhaps if they were to invite me back in an 'official blogger' role (hint, hint)...

I sat quietly while they rehearsed and shot a scene several times from different angles. It was interesting to see all the work that goes into a section of filming that will only last two minutes on screen. They make 48 episodes a year, which means they work much harder than I do.. Filming the scene were the actors James Redmond and Janine Mellor who play the parts of 'Abs' and 'Kelsey'. I don't think I could do their jobs, to much standing around and then repeating yourself... There was also an actor who has been in loads of programmes, but whose name I don't know. Again the costumes and the way they carried themselves reminded me of people whom I have worked with in the past.

After leaving (with the fun goodie pack pictured above) I had a meal in a local pub and then caught the train home (where I wrote this post).

Now to sleep before work tomorrow. Seven evening shifts - my favourites...

The video thing yesterday was purely a bit of fun. It's in Quicktime .mov format for those that had trouble viewing it. If I ever do it again, I don't think it'll be on this blog. It was my attempt to do a 'ze Frank' when I had a spare hour. It only took two takes and I think that speaks for itself. It is also viewble on Youtube.

Loads of stuff, including twelve hour shifts has meant a slight slacking of the blog.  Time for some catch-up.

• Mac Expo – Fun, and I met Magwitch, who’s blog you should definitely read.  I do dearly love my Mac (and my Windows box, and Xbox360 and…)  The problem with the Mac Expo was that there was a lot of nice software, just priced way out of my range.  £576 for a software backup solution?  No thanks!  I did buy one bit of software, and I’m training it now.  There were some good demonstrations and the general ‘vibe’ made it worth goig.
• Laura is, as always, lovely and somehow is managing to put up with me and my personality.  She is obviously a saint.
• I was in the Metro last week – I’m not sure if I should be happy though…  Allow me to explain.  I was approached by a PR company handling the new ‘Saved’ series.  They asked if I would do an interview with an online site and I agreed.  Then, without my permission, they reprinted some of my blog in the Metro as pretty much a full page advert for ‘Saved’.  While the blog is Creative Commons licensed, it is licensed under a non-commercial license, meaning that you cannot use it for commerical use without my permission.  So I’m not really happy that it got used without them even asking.  I may give them a little phone on Monday – or they could phone me…
• What would you say if you had a chance to have a chat with the writers and producers of ‘Casualty’? On Tuesday I get a chance to have a chat with them and *ahem* put them right.  I understand that they must make the programme interesting, but it just seems a bit like the writing is lazy.  I think it would be for the best if I stick to the medical side of things.  Still, I’ll be enjoying their hospitality and will blog about what happens later.
• I have a shiny new Bluetooth GPS receiver which, when coupled with my phone, means I’ll never get lost again.  Superb!
• (Too busy to answer loads of emails #1) Loads of people offered me hosting for a Wordpress blog, they are all very kind and I’ll be making my mind up about such things next week.
• (Too busy to answer loads of emails #2) If you have sent me a ‘Thanks, I like your blog/book’ email, I will answer them, but it takes time for me to do so.  Sorry.
• (Too busy to answer loads of emails #3) If you have emailed me about something important, it’s probably dropped off the face of my world, if you want to be sure I got it, please send it again.
• Couple of medical stories are in the ‘vault’ ready to be written, normal service will be resumed soon, etc, etc…

I'm heading off to the Mac Expo today. I've got to say I'm looking forward to it, it's been quite some time since I've been to a computer trade show of any sort. If anyone wants to meet up my mobile phone number is in the 'Contact me' section of the site.

I'm going to try my best to not return with an empty wallet.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous three posts - I try to stay a bit clear of politics on this blog but everything seems to be happening at once in the LAS.