If no carers lifted in any circumstances then wait times would be measured in days for ambulances and the harm would be huge.
Carers are lifting all the time - we have an urgent care line in the operations centre for them to call directly if they feel they need permission/cover first - essentially can you provide a triage for the patient and tell us it's safe to lift them/support them up and we will do.
Yep we have no training in lifting manually - it's just on the job learning really. In terms of kit we get trained to use scoop stretcher (generally only used in major trauma/RTC), manger elk or razor chair to lift in a home, slide sheet to get them onto it. But they all only work in an open space - we would absolutely use them in an open space because much safer - but otherwise it's just grab what you can reach and pull. There's no training for that, partly because training probably wouldn't change how people did it - it's just how you pick a kid up from the floor/common sense really, and also because they don't want to acknowledge it happens/it never sounds great in writing and absolutely ultimately there is risk to the person doing the lift - but also radio silence on how do you get someone up when they've fallen in a tiny bathroom and no room for any kit at all. I
In care home setting you have the space - but if you have to wait hours for ambulance crew then that's a lot of unnecessary suffering if staff have some kit of are physically able to lift.
In the eoc now if in a fall in a care home setting (so you know more than one member of staff etc not talking about a random on the street in their own), if in triage theres no obvious injury identified we will ask staff to lift the resident themselves - if they refuse we ask why and highlight that leaving them on the floor can result in serious harm, if the refusal is based around policy or just staff refusal then we have to document name/manager - because it is a refusal to render first aid to someone they have a duty of care over.
Of course if the carer says "can't because our lifting cushion broke this morning and the resident weighs 120kg" then that's just unfortunate. But if it's either a care home who hasn't brought any lifting kit - despite charging thousands in fees per week - that's negligent. If refusing to lift because they're not comfortable in taking that on themselves - you're right probably nothing will come of that but they could absolutely be told that this was the contributor to death in coroner's if it led to rhabdomyolysis (injury from a long lie, generally considered more than an hour, that leads to muscle breakdown - kidney failure). Legally speaking if you've got a duty of care you're taking more risk in refusing to help then in helping and causing another injury in doing so I.e skin tear etc.
What if a paramedic turns up and they're >90kg in a tiny space can't get any lifting kit in - imagine if we refused! If you have a duty of care you've got to render aid where able. If a resident/patient was light then that's very different to a weight that clearly can't be lifted by hand - we quite often goto people now >120kg who've had a life threatening medical event if they can't stand/get out, or transfer to a carry chair, or be in a position that we can get lifting kit in - essentially if they die due to delay getting them out it's unfortunate but just what it is. If the person was 40kg then I'm not sure how youd justify watching them die in the chair instead of top and tailing them onto a carry chair/pulling them out the building.