Would you make a complaint about these paramedics?

There is absolutely not a different code of conduct between registrants and non registrants.

Dear God what a bizarre attitude!!

OP I would definitely bring it to the attention of PALS, for future patient safety.

Really hope you're ok, that sounds horrible.

Shouldn't be an excuse and it's also not true, it's not a "far lower level of training"- a technician is the grade just below paramedic. There will always be either a paramedic or a technician on the crew.

Maybe not guaranteed better future care but surely some training based on this scenario will mean they will likely be over cautious rather than under cautious in the future to avoid a worse outcome

As a nurse (in a former life and a different century), I agree completely with this.

Whilst there was nothing wrong in the paramedics expecting @WatermelonWaveclub to walk to the ambulance, they should have walked with her, rather than ahead of her. Basic common sense.

In your shoes, OP, I would complain because what happened shows they need a reminder that they should be escorting the patient to the ambulance. And if they were heading off to get the chair or trolley to wheel you, they clearly didn't communicate that to you properly.

Did they make you walk, or did you just follow them? I don't understand why one if them didn't stay with you, but I would not have followed them, especially if I thought I might fall.

I hope you are OK.

What would a complaint achieve? It wouldn't guarantee better future care for other patients, because every case is treated on what they see at the time. You can't blame them for what happened.

I used to work in health complaints and would raise it. Everyone acts as if complaint = expectation of public flogging and abject apologies but they are often welcomed as one of the best ways of learning. Nobody learns from things that went perfectly!

It doesn't have to be aggressive or accusative, just send an email setting out the facts, say you're not making any sort of liability claim just wanted to highlight it to consider if anything should have been done differently to learn for next time. If they did anything particularly good you could highlight that at the same time.

Tbh I'm impressed you got an ambulance within a few minutes!

As they couldn't guarantee you not coughing a chair would have seemed sensible.

I think I would conplain in the spirit of constructive criticism. I expect their Trust would want to ensure training for similar circumstances is up to date, as this is exactly the sort of situation that does lead to them being sued.

You fell and bumped your head whilst under their care, that is not optimum care and should be addressed, as the outcome could gave been much worse, both from the perspective of your health, and from the perspective of their legal liability.

I hope you're feeling better, sounds like you've been really poorly.

We are going to enter "dare not question NHS workers" territory @WatermelonWaveclub

However, yes, they were clearly negligent here.

They had been told you were fainting, that you had experienced numbness on regaining consciousness, you were tachy. Yes, you should have been watched, they aren't there to chat they're there to provide care and in this case fell short.

I would report it. You could've injured yourself falling on concrete, you're lucky not to have sustained a head injury or broken bone. I would wonder how long it took them to notice you had lost consciousness again, so would ask to see CCTV from the car park.

No. But not everyone is a paramedic. They’re registered professionals but not everyone on an ambulance is, a
so there are different codes of conduct.

Not saying this was good care but the OP may have made several assumptions.

Is that some kind of excuse?

I would raise with PALS. If there was a wheelchair to hand I'm not sure why they wouldn't have used it. It's not about getting the ambulance crew into trouble, but it sounds like they could use a reminder about not taking unnecessary risks when transporting patients. Next time the head injury could be much worse for someone.

Not all ambulance workers are paramedics. Most are ambulance crew which is a far lower level of training. Just FYI.

they may not even be being paid (SJA volunteers).

OP should complain for the sake of OTHER PEOPLE. Its literally the job of the EMTs to get people in poor shape safely to the hospital. Everyone saying “take some responsibility “ and “oh now the EMTs get it was not a one off when she hit the floor for the third time” ? I can’t find words to describe how moronic that is. The EMTs did not correctly evaluate this patient for the risk of collapse, snd she did collapse and was needlessly injured while in their care. There is no excuse for this! They should be reported so they can receive more training.

Oh, sorry....didn't read this update. So they did know you were there.

I'm a paramedic.

It's really difficult to properly comment as I wasn't there, but it does sound like one possibility is they were planning to get the chair but when you started following they just went with it.

However, Normal procedure would be for one person to wait with the pateint while that was happening though- possibly they didn't because GP practice staff were there. Also, I always use the patients/GPs/care homes own wheelchair if available (the one on the ambulance isn't technically a wheelchair), which it was so I'd have thought if a chair was the plan they'd have done that.

Other possibly is they deemed you able to walk (the obs you've described don't necessarily scream "no walking" to me and I have no additional information- your age, ability, history etc so I'm only going off that). My trust has a no lift policy, where if a patient can walk, they should. However, we wouldn't walk off with the patient behind us. Depending on the situation you'd have someone either beside or behind you. In your case from what you've said I'd be holding your arm.

Saying that, I know almost no one who acts with any kind of malice at work. It would be even more unusual to find 3 whole people who are just being unkind, so I think there's likely to be a reason behind their carelessness.

Hope this helps, happy to answer any questions.

Oh and most importantly, I hope you're feeling better ❤