“Carers Leave Patient on Floor for over an Hour Illegally!” now that would be an interesting headline in a news paper, although we know it will more likely be “Ambulance takes an Hour to attend to Terminally ill man!”….

No Lift Policy

So why might we see a headline like this…..

I keep blogging about the inappropriate ways that people are using Ambulances.  I am not trying to lay the blame fully on some of the Synapsly (I know its probably not even a word) deficient people that we attend to, but also explain how other members of the care profession (Doctors, Nurses and Carers alike) abuse the Emergency Services.

Not so long ago we were called to an elderly gentleman who had been confirmed to have not hurt himself by our control room.  This man had allegedly fallen to the floor and was not injured but could not get up. As he was not injured and was deemed to be stable it was categorised as the lowest priority of call where Blue Lights and Sirens would not be appropriate.

This type of job we go to on a regular basis and for the most part I have no problem with going to them.  Just because they aren’t having a heart attack or their arm isn’t hanging off, it doesn’t mean they don’t need help.

In this particular case the male was being transferred between his bed and his commode by his wife. Something that this couple  would have done countless times before, but this time her husband was not able to stand.

Still not a problem, An elderly man has been lowered to the ground by his elderly wife, he can only give minimal assistance to stand and you can’t expect Mrs Migins to lift him all on her own….

…when we arrived to assist this elderly Copley we were met by a carer, a person that attends to this mans hygiene needs twice a day.  When she took us up to meet the patient we were met by another carer (now to be known as a “don’t carer”).  Now I am starting to get a little annoyed with this job.  We are met by two other people from a supposed Caring Profession who could very easily have lifted this non-injured patient from the floor rather than leaving him there for the hour that it took to get him two other people from a caring profession (us) to lift this man up.

Whilst I am shouting at the patient (he was a little deaf) his Grand Daughter (in her mid 30’s) appears from her room, she hadn’t even been told that her Grandfather had fallen.

So we now have three, young, fit, healthy people that all could have lifted this poor man who wasn’t even that heavy, but they still decided that a 999 response would be more appropriate……

….Like the true professionals that we are, we didn’t show any sign that we were a little miffed, we just got on with the job and gave the best level of care that we could (well somebody had too!). Whilst lifting the patient, the carers and the grand daughter left us in the room whilst they went downstairs – still not sure why…

…Whilst doing my paperwork (which took longer than the time it took to just lift him up) I had to listen to the wife telling us how good her “don’t carers” are and how please she was that it was these two carers that came in today, blah blah blah.  With that, one of the Halo Wearing, amazing carers, came into the same room and explained to the wife that their company had a “No Lift Policy” and that it had to be a “Paramedic that lifted her Husband”.

This implies a no lift policy, which is illegal as was defined by a Judicial Review in the High Court in the case of the two sisters known as A and B (claimants) and East Sussex County Council (defendant) in 2003.

Excellent, these were the statements that I needed to report you two Don’t Carers and your Don’t Care Company for not only abusing the Ambulance Service but also by being negligent to your clients!

Its fine to have a minimal handling policy as this is what we have in the Ambulance Service, we lift as little people as possible, however when the situation dictates we have various handling devices to make it easier and to ensure that we don’t hurt ourselves.

I don’t for the minute think that reporting this one case will make much of a difference, but hopefully if we keep chipping away, someone might start to listen!