http://www.wlky.com/news/15797078/detail.html?rss=lou&psp=news

and

http://www.wlky.com/news/15796068/detail.html?rss=lou&psp=news

for all the skeptics out there or all the people who feel the needs to get their pennys worth in …

it does not matter wether your a trainee , a tech , a para , an ecp , a nurse , doctor , consultant , jo public

you can know every sign & symptom of every medical condition , trauma injury in the entire world …

you can know the meaning of being whatever …

this does NOT alter the fact that if a patient tells you to f-off your not touching me …. we can do nothing about it !!

i would say with this head injury case , you can slag off the crew that went until your blue in the face , end of the day you were not there , you do not know what happend you cannot judge them

chances are the crew knew exactly that a head injury can cause a non-violent person to become aggressive …

again we cannot forcibly remove anyone (unless under section for mental health act) … thats the bread and butter of it , so i suggest if you wanna bad mouth the crew you should at least have a vague idea of what your talking aout !!!!

Another example i will add is a guy who choked to death … the nearest vehicle was about 3 minutes away but were on a break , the ambulance service got slammed in the papers , but what you out there dont realise when were on a break ( on our TWELVE HOUR SHIFT ) We do not hear the jobs going out .. we have no idea if someone arrests outside the front door , we do not get informed of this! this is no fault of our own and it has been known for people to moan about us insisting on having breaks , how many of you 9-5 desk jockeys would work 8 hours without your hour lunch and 2 1/4 hour coffee breaks !! Ambulance staff are human we need a break to you know !!!!!!! so think a little outside the box before you slate us! thanks!

I went to an Arrest where the family would not let me or my colleague anywhere near their relative … i couldnt tell you if it was a viable arrest or not ! but we got bad press for not doing anything , well what can we do !? We effectively got told ‘ touch my mum and il kill you ‘

Enough said !!!! …. Keep up the blogs guys

cogidubnus, to also be perfectly clear, as an EMT, I am fully aware that head injuries can cause aggression - we call it combative.
However, even if I know a patient needs treatment, if he stands there and tells me he doesn’t want me to touch him, then I can’t.
To touch him without consent could end up in a common assault charge.

I will try to persuade them to go to let me at least assess them, if not take them to hospital, but some flatly refuse, and regardless of what’s wrong with them, with the exception of mental illness as Mark mentioned above, I cannot force them to go.

I’m very careful about this with the current climate of accusation and complaint - I will not touch a patient to even take their pulse without asking them if I can first.

With the case above, if the police said they were going to arrest him, I’d have asked them to make sure the FME (police doctor) has a look at him.

Crew arrive. Patient has head injury. Crew try to treat patient. Patient refuses to be treated. Patient lashes out to crew. Crew do not want to get injured, and call for police for their own protection. (NOT to “punish” the patient for being violent towards them). Police arrive and restrain patient. Crew still want him to go to hospital. Patient still refuses. Ambulance crew do not have the right to take someone to hospital without their permission, however, police can take anyone they like to the police station. Ambulance crew leave patient with police. Police are aware patient has head injury and agree to monitor patient and call for the police doctor if he deteriorates. Patient deteriorates. Police doctor is called for. Patient, who is no longer refusing treatment, goes to hospital.

It’s important to note that the crew did *not* withhold treatment from the patient. They tried to treat him and he refused, so their hands were tied. There does seem to be a belief that if someone is seriously injured/unwell, an ambulance crew (or doctor, nurse, etc) can thrust treatment on them without their consent. This isn’t true. The only time a patient can be treated without their consent is if they are sectioned under the mental health act or completely unable to communicate.

Let’s be perfectly clear on this…you as a calltaker are saying that you’ve been trained to know that a head injury can make a non-aggressive, non-violent man behave violently and lash out, and that this doesn’t mean he is intrinsically violent…so why didn’t the presumably better-trained crew know this?…why did they withold treatment and pass him over to the police?

I started out on the premise that a violent pisshead got what he deserved…the more YOU protested, the more the weaknesses in the EMT crews statements have emerged…I’m sorry but you cannot have it both ways…

Having said that, as ambulance staff, we just can’t win. NHS Trusts have a bit of a habit of giving the complainers some money to shut them up - I hope EEAT fights rather than just paying out if the family sue.