999 triage

[littlebillie]

To think that the triage on 999 is too simplistic?

difficult to say without more info

Eh?

What triage? Only ever dialed 999 once.

Bit too vague, sorry.

Are you breathing
Is a limb hanging off
Have you chest pain
Have you symptoms of a stroke
Are you in agonising pain rendering you unable to move

Pretty much sums it up doesn't it?

Are they breathing or bleeding

Late to party- but 'emergency what service do you require'? Pretty damn good then followed by stuff pp above said.

Well not really, they do ask more questions than that but those are the most important two to ask first to determine what they next do/say/ask. 999 is for serious emergencies so it stands to reason that they would triage like that.

Part of why it is so simple is so a child or someone with a learning disability can understand the questions. If someone is bleeding a lot of not breathing the ambulance is dispatched straight away while the operater takes more details

Of course 999 is triaged. It's not first come, first served.

They need to know if you need an ambulance NOW or in ten minutes or two hours.

NOW v ten minutes means do they jump red lights (risking further accidents) or not. Ten minutes v two hours means do they check on the elderly lady first who fell and may have dislocated her hip.

When people are frightened and upset they don't give information well. Asking very simple questions quickly gets useful information when needed.

Something on fire/people trapped- fire service, people ill/injured- ambo, criminal activity- police, something for all of above? Get all of above.

Never phoned them but breathing or bleeding as a first question makes sense to me.

Sorry - in the time it's taken me to read the OP and responses I'd forgotten what the OP was

OP are you generally a bit hard of understanding?

Possibly- they wouldn't send an ambulance when I was half collapsed with a pulmonary embolism, they told my now fiancé off. We got a black cab. He was trying to answer as logically as possible- and missed certain 'buzz' words that would have had an ambulance dispatched.

Please take the time to post a few more words.

If you're taking about the first questions asked, you're wrong. There's a reason they ask them (and it's 'is the patient breathing')

The first 2 medical questions (for most Ambulance services) are

"Is the patient breathing?"
"Is the patient conscious?"

The address is obtained and verified, before a specific set of questions is asked, depending on the symptoms given. Determining the severity of the problem and the appropriate response needed.

The caller is then given relevant instructions (CPR, bleeding control, guided through how to deliver a baby) and the calltaker (EMD) will either stay on the line to monitor the patient, or hang up to take another call, instructing caller to 'call back if anything changes'

I phoned 999 for the first time ever recently, my father had a prolonged seizure. I did find the questions they asked very repetitive and some of them were daft ( is there a defibrillator at the address, when I'd already told them it was a private house) but I think the main aim was to keep us calm and talking to them until the first responder arrived ( very quickly). I've also been present when a neighbour with mental health issues called an ambulance for himself, having also called the police, which apparently he does repeatedly. Not everyone who calls 999 has good reason to do so, of course they need to triage the calls and decide how urgently to deal with it.

YABVU. You clearly have no idea what the AMPDS (ambulance medical priority dispatch system) involves and it certainly isn’t simplistic. Off the top of my head there are around 20 odd medical category codes which can be 4 different levels of priority and about 3-7 sub categories in each level.

That does not say it is a good system, it was developed in US and it’s strongest point is it’s resilience to litigation. It is also built around the government system of measuring effectiveness which is time based and not outcome based. But until a better system is agreed on its what we have.

So go on then OP, HOW would you do it differently??

I remember my mum flipping out on the phone to 999 when ds wasn’t yet 48 hours old.”history of heart disease, he’s 2 days old he doesn’t have a history of anything”. I had to take the phone off her and finish the call. She’s the kind of person who cannot accept set questions (I don’t want to say script, I know it’s not that simple). I think tv programs have given people ideas about ambulances arriving in minutes and whisking patients off when in reality it doesn’t slways need to be that way.

YABVU. You clearly have no idea what the AMPDS (ambulance medical priority dispatch system) involves and it certainly isn’t simplistic. Off the top of my head there are around 20 odd medical category codes which can be 4 different levels of priority and about 3-7 sub categories in each level.

That does not say it is a good system, it was developed in US and it’s strongest point is it’s resilience to litigation. It is also built around the government system of measuring effectiveness which is time based and not outcome based. But until a better system is agreed on its what we have.
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Exactly this. There are 35 cards, and the patient is triaged down whichever protocol best fits their symptoms.

EMDs are not medically trained and so have to follow the questions/script to the letter.

The defibrillator instruction is given as standard in the PDI (post dispatch instructions) on some of these protocols.
While it's true they aren't generally in residential addresses, there may be one nearby.

The EMDs do an incredibly difficult job under increasingly pressurised circumstances. They get a lot of abuse and deal with some unbelievably traumatic calls, reassuring people at their worst moments and providing excellent care before the ambulance/responder arrives.

YABU

would you like the task of getting vital and coherent medical information out of panic stricken members of the public?

Of course there’s a triage. A PP explained perfectly the reason why NOW or ten minutes or two hours matters. “Are they breathing?” Is a pretty damn quick way to find out if it’s NOW. They’re asking questions to help direct the best resources in the most efficient way. They’re trying to HELP YOU ffs