Another week, another f**k up

It would have been really nice to have made a cheerful, positive post, but in a service managed by f**kwits, no such luck.

The pathways curse

First off the curse of pathways has struck more than once, nowt unusual there, but it keeps making REALLY unsafe decisions. In case you haven't heard of Pathways before, its a computer program designed to ensure 999 callers to the ambulance service get the most appropriate response in a safe and tmelymanner.

Pathways on the other hand sends ambulances rushing out to minor aliments, whilst patient's needing a fast response or processed as being safe to wait from a ambulance travelling under normal road conditions.  Its een been known to decide someone who actually neded a blue light response as being suitable for a return  telephone call an hour after the 999 call, INSTEAD of an ambulance.

Only recently one colleague was sent as a delayed non emergency response to find their patient laying in the middle of the road, not once but twice, yes that's right twice in one shift. Apparently lying in the middle of a road is perfectly safe, but I don't think I'd recommend it.

Of course some would ask why is this such a big problem, well in an ambulance service that only has 4 emergency ambulances on duty, an ambulance that's tied up on lower priority calls cannot be used when a call requiring a full emergency response comes in of course there is no ambulance available to send.

For years the Isle of Wight ambulance servicehas been incredibly lucky, never, as far as anyone can recall has any patient sufferred because of a lack of ambulances. Within the last week there have sadly been 2 deaths. One patient faced having to make their own way into hospital in their family car after been told it would be the fastest way of getting to hospital, and who sadly died shortly after arriving. The other patient who was awake when the ambulance was called, faced nearly a hour's wait for an emergency ambulance, but again sadly by the time the crew got to the patient, that patient had also sadly died.

The thoughts of all the operational staff are with the families involved in both these very sad cases.

Not all managers are crap

On a slightly positive note, at least not all our managers are from the same mould. Faced with a horrendously busy shift, nowt new there then, non stop workload, again nowt new, two of the managers were actually seen to take an ambulance out and start to answer 999 calls, now that's almost unheard of. Total respect to those two.