With New year's eve night approaching the LAS has put out it's usual call for people to be sensible.

Our head of Emergency Preparedness says this,

“Alcohol-related calls put extra pressure on the Service, so I’d ask people to be sensible. Every minute that we spend looking after somebody who is simply drunk, is a minute that could have been spent helping a patient who is seriously ill or injured. We want people to enjoy themselves, but they should think carefully before dialling 999. It should only be used for emergencies.”

Because. for us - New year's eve is an emergency.

Note that he does say what I'd like us to do - "If you call an ambulance for someone who is drunk, or has had their drink 'spiked' (normally their tenth or eleventh pint), don't expect an ambulance, instead expect the street sweepers to come around and wake you up in the morning".

But no, instead we will continue to mollycoddle people for whom 'I drank so much last night I can't remember anything' is a good night out.

The Saint - commenter and all round good egg has come up with the following campaign, in order to educate the public as to someone being 'pissed' as opposed to 'collapse - unknown cause' or 'life status questionable'

With the stunning success of the Department of Health's FAST campaign, to identify whether a patient has suffered a CVA (Stroke), it has been decided to extend this further for the festive season. The table below may be used by the public to identify whether their mates have suffered a medical or traumatic collapse, or are simply drunk. This will be known as the PISSED scale, and will differ slightly for young males and young females.

	MALE	FEMALE
P	Punchy: Picks fights with inanimate objects, like walls.	Pants: Usually found around her ankles, unless ankles are behind ears.
I	Irritating: Is really fucking annoying, but thinks he is up for a British Comedy Award.	Identity: Is usually called Sharon, Tracy, Chantelle or Chardonnay.
S	Speech: Keeps saying "You're my best mate - I love you" to total strangers.	Spiked: Insists her drink has been spiked. Never states which one of 17 she means.
S	Staggers: Staggers off pavement into heavy traffic.	Sex: Seeks out men for immediate casual sex, despite her targets not being remotely interested.
E	Enuresis: Urinates over himself and anyone/anything else within 5 feet.	Erection: Is not able to engender this reaction in said casual sex partner.
D	Denial: Despite the above, states he hasn't touched a drop of alcohol.	Dead: What she plays when she realises no-one is interested in her.

If the patient scores 1/6 or more then he or she is seriously pissed and you MUST act FAST. call a cab IMMEDIATELY.


As an aside - can I show you this press release made on the 21st of December.

Londoners are being urged to only call 999 with life-threatening emergencies this evening.

The London Ambulance Service is continuing to receive a large volume of calls, and combined with the road and traffic conditions across the capital it means that the emergency system is coming under extreme pressure.
To enable us to provide the fastest response we can to patients with serious or immediately life-threatening illnesses and injuries, we are not currently sending ambulances to callers with minor injuries or illnesses.

Here's an idea. Make this a constant message. That you shouldn't pick up a phone, dial 999 and when asked which emergency service you require ask for an ambulance because you have vomited once, or you have a cough, or a runny nose, or for the last three days have had a painful knee (all calls I've been to in the past few days).


Before I turn out the lights on my 2009, I'd like to wish every ambulance crew working NYE and to all the suckers volunteers working central London that night the very best and a safe shift.
To everyone else, both ambulance crews and 'normal people', I wish a happy and safe new year.
Talk to you in 2010.

I've not died - my plan was to blog at least every second day, but that has gone for a burton as my internet connection is up and down more times than a *insert metaphor*. I'm trying to get it fixed, but of course that means some time after the bloody waste of time that is Christmas.

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I must admit that I saw this on the BBC, and thought it sounded somewhat familiar.

The government has been urged to review its targets for ambulances responding to 999 calls, following claims that patient care is being affected.

The NHS Confederation, which acts for ambulance trusts, said that targets can produce "unintended consequences" and "may not be benefitting patients."

Ahem .

However Mr Edwards added: "Any narrow target which focuses on one measure does have the potential for producing unintended consequences and maybe not benefitting patients.

"A solution might be to move to a measure in which we measure the outcome of what's done rather than just the process, so what was the outcome for the patient? Did they receive the emergency care that they should have done?

"And if we could move to a situation which was better at measuring that, then we might avoid some of the unintended consequences of these very tight timescale based targets."

He was backed by academic Janette Turner, from the Sheffield University's Medical Care Research Unit.

Cough.

She told the BBC: "The only proven clinical value of an eight-minute response is for patients with cardiac arrest, where a really fast response really can make the difference between whether they survive or whether they die, but for the other patients there's no proven relationship between how quickly the ambulance gets there and whether they survive.

"The problem that creates for ambulance services is if they get there in seven minutes and the patient dies, they have succeeded because they have met a target and if they get there in nine minutes and the patient lives, they have failed because they haven't reached the target."

How's 2004 for warning people about this?

The question that I need to ask now is, seeing as I've been saying this for as long as I've been blogging, I must be an expert on this situation - so can I have a nice paying non-shiftwork job at the DoH?
No, of course not - what do I know about ambulance work anyway? Better to have a someone who has been a teacher and solicitor as the 'expert' on ambulance work?