Have a great christmas Tom :)
Don't get too disheartened - The blogosphere will be behind you 100% of the way whatever you decide x

Have a great break from the blog and put your feet up (if you can!). We're here for you Tom. Regards @parkylondon

Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

Best Wishes

Beckie x

I hope you have a fantastically peaceful Christmas. Put your feet up - you've earned it.

Good luck for 2009 whatever you decide to do - and whatever it is I hope you will keep writing about it.

Ben x

All the best while you're on pause, and hope the decisions come easily (and work out for the best)

Merry (hic) Christmas, and here's to whatever 2009 throws up...

Happy Christmas Tom. Heres hoping 2009 will be a good year for us all :)

Merry Christmas Tom and may the New Year bring new, positive thoughts.
And by the way the 21st was the shortest day we are now on longer days day by day :-)

Tom,

Whatever you turn your hand to, I'm sure you'll find something to write about it.

And, in turn, we'll all be there to read it, as your style, compassion and passion are what makes your blog unmissable.

Have a good break and I look forward to your return in whatever guise it is.

You've earned it Tom
I will waiting with baited breath for your return
Have a wonderfull Christmas and a Very Happy New Year
Lots of love
xx

Merry Christmas Tom and Happy New Year for 2009!

cheers

Have a peaceful Christmas and a Happy New Year.. hope you are not overworked and underappreciated but I have my doubts...

We will look forward to your return with anticipation of what your future holds for you...

Have a great Christmas, a Happy New Year, and good luck in whatever you decide :-)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Reynolds - may it be a happy one for you.

Happy Xmas Tom and to all your readers
All the very best for 2009
Lv Joan x

Merry Chritsmas and Happy New Year Tom

I hope the new year brings you clarity in your decisions and whatever you decide to do will make you happy. If that is leaving the service then so be it. We will all be behind you 100%. Thank you for the inspiration you have given many of us in your role as a techincian and blogger!

Louise x

best of luck 'me old china' carpe diem

Merry Christmas. Take care.

I posted this last night on another blog, TraumaQueen, and think it is relevant to you too. My daughter lives in your area, and I often think if she has a bad attack it might just be you to the rescue - a reassuring thought when I know her friends/flatmates might not realise how ill she is.
>>Have just got back from Hospital, having had a fraught afternoon/evening. Husband was on the point of serving the turkey when we realised daughters mild asthma attack had become silent and she was getting nicely blue round the mouth. So many many thanks are due to the calm and helpful call taker, then Corinne who rang me back to assure me help was on its way and to talk through exact state of play and what we needed to do/get ready, to the two lovely ambulance men who treated her in the house and en route, the paramedic who ‘popped’ in to check they were ok, and the staff of all levels in A&E. She is okay, slightly ‘high’ from several hours on oxygen, and we will have our Christmas dinner tomorrow!
Thank you, all you wonderful people. <<
As a I type, now home, she is on the sofa resting and we are beginning to relax as the prednisilone (sp?) protects her. Grateful for the ambulance staff willing to work at Christmas.
When considering your future, remember, we do really really appreciate all you do. Go and have a year of fun somewhere to re-charge the batteries then think what to do next
Have a wonderful New Year going where your heart takes you.

Having done 34 years in the service it gets in your blood and whenever you go to leave it takes a lot. Its a great job dont just giveit up you can move to a different ambulance service and see how that takes. Or best of all buy my book Bells two Tones And Sirens either from Amazon or Autherhouse i brought yours and i enjoyed it very much like i like reading your bloggs.
Keep it up and have a Happy New Year

I'm ten years in and I've had enough. This xmas one long round of pathetic ass-wiping. I'm sick of the nee-naw rush-rush just to pander to some knee-jerk whim. Orcon this, target that. CAC full of 12 year-olds who haven't got a clue. Management ineptitude and bullying, can't remember last time I finished on time or got a break at a reasonable time (if at all).

That's it. I'm jacking it. There's a new breed of Paramedic Scientist Uni-bods and ECA's emerging who are happy to be Proud to Serve Bums on Seats. They can have it, it's not the job I joined to do anymore.

Hi Tom,
Xmas has passed but hope you have a good new year. I've been reading, and occasionally posting for some time now, got a few years under the belt myself and having a bit of a issue with my firm at the moment. We all have to deal with the shit that comes our way; from governmental targets that have bugger all to do with patient care, from our management ( or lack of it ) who kow-tow to these targets and don't have the balls to say any different and from the 'patients' or thier relatives who abuse us and the service we provide. Yet we all get that very special 'buzz' when we know that in some way we have helped someone, either through some minor situation like lifting a granny off the floor and tucking her up under her quilt, or that resus that went right and a relative finds the time to get in touch to say thank you for what what we did or even the death that was handled with compassion and understanding with a grateful family despite thier grief.

You have that special gift in making those things possible. It would be wrong of me to say 'Don't turn your back on it' as I am sure that you will find another role in helping those worse off than you. Whatever you decide, please let it be some role where you can come home, look at yourself in the mirror and say ' Today I made someones life just a little bit better '. And whatever you do, keep writing about it.

Best wishes for 2009 and all that it may bring.
Barry

All the best for whatever you decide. We will be here to keep you company :) @araldia

Consider what you have achieved in the ears of your blogs. You have made us realise the the NHS is not the smooth machine we once envisaged. You have shown us how the troops give their all and why they are demoralised by the management. How the NHS is top heavy and wasteful. How the staff mas 'make do' and improvise. How they face daily abuse from all quarters.

What ever you decide to do, we will be with you all the way.

Hi Tom,

I'd like to go on record and state that yours was the first blog that i seriously followed, after reading about you in The Guardian. While I wasn't naive enough to think that health workers had an easy life, for me you've brought things on the front line into sharper focus. Whatever you decide, I wish you a pleasant future.

And can I say 2 things.

1. Linda Lusardi needs her [posterior] kicked for thinking a pantomime is an emergency.

2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/7805362.stm
without prejudicing legal process, what do they mean by "suspicion of wilfully neglecting to perform duty in a public office?" I hope the crew involved is getting a load of support.

Hi Tom

Have a good break and all the best for 2009. I hope the coming year brings new and exciting opportunities for you.

RM x

Here we go again, more introspection & shall I/shan't I pack it all in? A while ago you said you were definitely going but you're still here. I call it classic attention seeking and rather boring.

Hahahahahahahahahaha

Thank you for giving me a bloody good laugh.

Welcome :)

Yo, Tom

Hope you had a good Christmas.

Thinking about jacking it in? Burnout? Listen to one who has been there, done that, my friend. First, how sure are you that this is not a combination of exhaustion, SAD, post-viral depression, uncle Tom Cobley and all? One way to find out - can you separate up your disenchantment with the conditions of the job, from the job itself? in other words, does your heart sink and your brain disengage, at the thought of dealing with just one more problem on the road, or one more problem in the office or with HR? If the former, you may indeed have reached the end of this particular road, and I would urge you for your patients' sake, to step back and join another path.

Lord Moran said, "Courage is will-power, whereof no man has an unlimited stock; and when in war is used up, he is finished. A man's courage is his capital and he is always spending."

Moran wasn't just talking about heroics and bravery, but about mental resilience. if you judge you are losing the ability to come back fighting, get out now. God knows there are plenty of areas where your skills and experience can be useful and earn a crust. have you kept up your nursing qualification?

But I hope this is a temporary glitch and you will be able to take a deep breath and start over. Whichever, I wish you all the best.

now that i have caught up with all your posts after getting your book for xmas 2 years ago! I can sympathise with you as i work in the NHS and feel that we are being run by target chasers, management numpties and people who want to put thier own stamp on the nhs. Hope that you come tyo the right descion for you.

Tom got your book for Xmas and finished it already - I couldn't put it down. I was looking forward to more so sad to hear you may not continue but understand why you need some time to "consider your future". I am not in the profesional ambulance service but am a Community First Responder and an ETA with St John. I would love to train as a paramedic but several things stop me; I am in my fifties so probably too old to change career this late in life/pension (lame excuse?); I would love the role but know very well that the day to day reality of it (shifts, government targets, petty politics) would **** me off; I get paid a lot of money to do my current job and as the chief earner in the house I don't have the financial freedom to take the pay cut! So in the meantime I do it for love not money - and what keeps me doing it are the people/patients I meet (and hopefully make a difference to in some way) and the wake up call it gives me on a regular basis. There's nothing like doing CPR for real or going into other people's houses/lives in a crisis to reset your perspective on life. So I wish you all the best for 2009 - whatever your decision is. And if you decide to do something else you could always join St John and do it for love rather than money! You'll escape the shifts but I can't make any promises about the politics.

Handed my notice to my SO last Friday who "strongly urged" me to reconsider. Supervisor had a moan about how difficult it was to get my shifts covered. Told him to shove the manning up his arse and went home sick. I will never again set foot in a Big White Taxi or on any complex. It feels good!

A collegue has just come back from the US. Whilst there he saw a tee-shirt with the legend 'EMTs, we're here to save your ass, not kiss it'. Wonder if we could get those words (In an English version of course) embroidered into the crests we wear on our uniforms?

Here I was feeling grumpy and fed up at the state of the world, but this post has really bucked me up! I wish you all the luck in the world, and as another poster has said, if they dare to discipline you for telling the truth, give us an address and I for one will certainly let them have it.

If you can do it, so can I - my usual new year's resolutions have all gone in the bin and been replaced by "be like Tom and do great things". As someone once said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing", so let's go.

I'm going to stop now before it all goes to my head and I start manning barricades or something : )

Looking forward to reading what's to come, and a very happy new year to everyone.