If clinicians can be drafted in to answer 999 calls today…

[Treedecsandtinsel]

If clinicians were able to be drafted in today to answer 999 calls today during the paramedic strike, AIBU to think the government could have taken the same action earlier when we started to see ambulances stuck outside hospitals and no-one available to get to other emergencies?

I stopped to chat to some paramedics on the picket line at my local ambulance station today. They wanted to be clear that they had been responding to calls when needed but that they are certain that having clinicians answering 999 calls has helped to manage the calls coming through to them. So they asked why on earth that wasn’t arranged before?

AIBU to think that this government has just shown that it has been sitting about watching the ambulance lines getting longer and longer when more could have been done?

and who is doing the clinicians job whilst they're answering the phones?

Because there would be no one to do the other tasks that clinicians do?

Is this a serious post @Treedecsandtinsel or are you just trolling?

see BamBamBilla’s post above.. who does their job when they’re “drafted in”??

YABU.

VU.

When you say “clinicians” you mean “GPs”.

Yep, great idea, let’s stop GPs seeing patients in primary care and draft them into manning 999 call centres on normal non-strike days instead, it’s not like GPs have anything else to do, or like there are already huge delays to see a GP is it?

During the junior doctors’ strike, consultants did all the work of the junior doctors, and it worked very well. Better than normal in fact. So from that we can conclude that if we could only cancel all outpatient activity, all elective surgery, all routine scans, and shut down the dialysis units and chemo suites, the NHS would run fine.

Although you are right that if GPs can sort out most 999 calls with a bit of advice over the phone, there are a lot of fucking timewasters calling 999.

Rather than throwing our hands up and going well it’s impossible to solve.

if having clinicians (GPS?) answer 999 calls works to reduce the flow of work to the ambulance service, does that then reduce the flow of people into hospitals?

what could be done on GP/ other clinicians work demands to make that happen?

We can’t just go on expecting the system to work. It’s collapsed. It is time to look at what can change.

There are clinicians working within EOC's 24/7 anyway usually on the CHUB desk.

Well if gps can reduce the amount of ambulances needed just by answering the calls imagine the difference they could make if they actually saw patients and opened surgeries 7 days a week…

No, the clinicians are not necessarily GPs and most likely are not! I'm a paramedic and have worked in the control room triaging calls in the past. We have a number of paramedics, advanced paramedic practitioners and some nursing staff triaging calls, not a GP in sight. We are all clinicians.

God, everyone has an answer to the NHS who doesn’t work in the NHS. (I don’t work in the service but just saying.

i mean I loved this one in particular:

We can’t just go on expecting the system to work. It’s collapsed. It is time to look at what can change.

do you also do a greetings card writing service @Treedecsandtinsel ?

We all know this.

It needs to start however with PAY. Attract people. Retain them. Make it fair so they’re not trying to live on 2013 wages in 2023.

The BBC explained they have more clinicians there in the call centres these days to help with calls. Including midwives and nurses and doctors.

would have been a decent point without the unnecessary sarcasm

Actually we had hospital managers musing about “how many more discharges” we had during the junior doctors’ strike, and insinuating it would be better if we got rid of “inefficient” junior doctors altogether and just had consultants delivering the service. Heard similar comments from patients too.

The point about the effect on other services to having consultants writing discharge letters and putting in cannulas had to be made pretty strongly.

Don't know if you remember but before 111 service was set up there was a service mainly staffed by clinicians [nurses and GPs] called NHS 24 which was much more efficient but more expensive to run

NHS24 was disbanded by the incoming tory government in 2010 - good old 'efficiency savings' - and replaced by 111 which is largely staffed by non-hcps using an algorithm wh some people feel drives referral to hosp and use of 999

So not really surprising that it might be a good thing to use clinicians

I am an A&E nurse. I wasn't allowed to strike as A&E is an essential service. However, I was asked to volunteer 12 hours of my time to cover the ambulance strikes. That was a no

Why aren't they using clinicians to take the place of paramedics? Surely they would be more use actually treating & assessing patients?

Why are the 6 figure salaries NHS managers not sorting this out? Isnt tha what we pay them for or do they just sit on their arses all day looking for more ways to waste money?

From the magic clinician tree?? Do you really believe there are loads of clinicians sitting around doing nothing then??

Well yes obviously pay needs sorting out. That needs sorting out across the NHS and Social Care love. Yes it will help attract and retain staff. But that’s not the full issue.

so You don’t work in the NHS and you don’t have any ideas. Best not be so rude then!

I agree with @SavoirFlair . The nhs is in a spiral of lack of retention, which causes understaffed shifts which means work is worse for those who remain (encouraging them to leave or retire early).

The underlying issue is retention of experienced staff. Juniors prefer to work in a system where they are properly supervised and trained so that they can deliver a good service. Seniors prefer to work in a system where they have enough time to train juniors and keep up their skills with CPD and discuss hard issues with their senior colleagues rather than being asked to make a million different decisions because they are asked to cover the work of several people.

nhs has fewer doctors and nurses and hospital beds per capita than many developed countries. We are objectively under-staffed. Under-staffing contributes to inefficiency because over-burdened people ‘push’ work they could have solved to others (as they have no time/energy). I used to work in nhs.

Personally I think all the upheavals of yet another re-organisation will not help. Nhs has had several re-orgs (lansley, hunt) - which cost time and money. running an insurance based system will require employment of a whole dept of people who check and chase payments.

more efficient to see if adequate pay and better staffing will address the problems before jumping in to ‘change the model’

Because we're not paramedics and don't have their skills or knowledge! Pharmacists are clinicians, as are Scientists, Oncologists, Anaesthetists etc etc. You give me a broken leg or a burn and I wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do, barr common sense. If I was given a portable ECG machine thing I'd be kneeling by the casualty looking up instructions on Google.

The other reason we can't just take their place is because a lot of us had annual leave cancelled or our normal shift pattern changed to cope with the fall out from strikes. Yeah that's shit, it happens, we'll cover for our colleagues when their union is out on strike, but I'd like to be able to some my leave at some point!

Yes, I am 100% sure much much more can be done to sort the NHS issues.
Proper organisation is a main one indeed.

I'm in Scotland...I rang to speak to the gynae registrar on call yesterday to ask them to see a patient only to get the consultant. He said this was typical now, that they couldn't get enough middle grade staff to cover the rotas.
I do think that many times jobs are advertised but the successful applicant wants 70-80% time and then they allow this but don't bother getting anyone else for the remaining 20-30% of time so you never have enough staff.

Paramedics are clinicians 🤦🏻‍♀️