Ambulance UK April 2021

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NEWSLINE LAS Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit ambulance station to meet teams supporting each other through COVID pandemic Midlands Air Ambulance Charity, the organisation is developing a purpose-built airbase and charity headquarters in the Shropshire area, which will benefit patients across the whole of the Midlands. The robust plans were approved by Shropshire Council late January, the charity’s Board of Trustees AMBULANCE UK - APRIL The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Newham Ambulance Station in East London to speak to ambulance staff and paramedics about their experiences of working during one of the most challenging periods in the London Ambulance Service’s history. London Ambulance Service NHS Trust Chair Heather Lawrence OBE welcomed the couple along with Deputy Chief Executive Khadir Meer. Heather Lawrence OBE said: “It is very much appreciated that Their Royal Highnesses took time to visit and thank our staff who have worked throughout the pandemic often in very stressful and distressing circumstances.” Khadir Meer said: “Our Service has had to work harder than ever over the past year to care for London. It’s vital and extremely rewarding work, but it can take a toll and even the most resilient of us need support at times like these. “Looking after our people is essential to continue to care for Londoners. This is why we are trying to do everything we can to support the physical and mental health of our teams working under such pressure.” Covering the boroughs of Newham and Waltham Forest, Newham Station forms part of the second busiest station group in the London Ambulance Service having attended over 76,500 calls over the past year. During the visit, The Duke and Duchess joined paramedic Jahrin Khan in the Station’s Wellbeing Garden to hear how she has coped with the pressures of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and including impact of having to isolate from her family. Their Royal Highnesses also heard more about the mental health and wellbeing support provided to staff at the Station, including drop-in sessions and wellbeing spaces, alongside some of the wider initiatives provided by the London Ambulance Service including their fleet of Wellbeing Tea Trucks. Launched in February 2020, the tea trucks travel to hospitals and control centres across the capital each day, serving hot drinks and snacks to ambulance staff and volunteers and offering them the chance to take a moment to pause and refresh. The trucks also allow staff who are currently unable to work in patient-facing roles the opportunity to give back to their frontline colleagues. At the Station, The Duke and Duchess met paramedic Shani Smith who has been helping to run one of the trucks over the past year, and heard how she has used her mental health training to provide peer support to her colleagues. The London Ambulance Service has received £100,000 of funding from NHS Charities Together, of which Their Royal Highnesses are joint Patrons, to enable them to continue to run the trucks and expand their provision in order to meet the needs of crew and volunteers during this challenging time. The funding has also been used to create isolation packs and food for staff across LAS sites. The Duke of Cambridge is committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of the emergency services community, having witnessed first-hand the challenges that emergency responders face on a daily basis during his roles as both an Air Ambulance and RAF Search and Rescue pilot. Over the last year, The Duke and Duchess and The Royal Foundation have worked to support those working on the frontline of the pandemic, including through the provision of grants to ten leading charities at the heart of mental health and frontline support as part of a bespoke COVID relief fund. Midlands Air Ambulance Charity’s plans to futureproof advanced prehospital care To help futureproof the advanced pre-hospital service operated by gave final approval of the plans in February and work is expected to start on site this spring. Midlands Air Ambulance Charity joins the growing number of air ambulance organisations who have identified the needed to develop a purpose-built facility in order to ensure clinical and non-clinical working environments are futureproofed, with approximately 50 per cent of the 21 organisations undertaking a similar vital capital project. The charity’s new airbase and headquarters will help to address a number of challenges facing the service. These include the annual rising demand for advanced patient care on scene, the increased complexity of patient needs requiring specialist skills, medicines and equipment, and the fact there is insufficient training facilities for the critical care paramedics and pre-hospital emergency medicine doctors at the current facilities. In order to face these challenges head on and ensure the service is futureproofed for decades to come, as part of the build project, Midlands Air Ambulance Charity will create a state-of-the-art clinical training simulation suite. Hanna Sebright, chief executive for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity, states: “Over our 30-year history, our charity has been driven by a commitment to continuously improve advanced pre-hospital patient care across the Midlands. 50 For further recruitment vacancies visit: www.ambulanceukonline.com
NEWSLINE “We consider our new airbase and charity headquarters to be a vital development for the whole of the region. The new facility, located in Cosford, Shropshire, will feature clinical training facilities, which are fundamental to delivering the advanced training programmes required for our clinicians. This will ensure the critical care team are equipped to treat the increasingly complex patient cases and will enhance our daily lifesaving service.” A report by planning officer, Richard Fortune at Shropshire Council, who supported the plans says: “There is substantial public benefit from the provision of this service and the case presented amounts to very special circumstances sufficient to justify this proposal.” Midlands Air Ambulance Charity has been working with architects, Box Developments to design the facility, and planning and development consultancy Turley to secure planning permission from Shropshire Council. Initial groundwork will start on site this spring, and the site is expected to be completed late 2022. The new facility will complement the charity’s existing air ambulanceled service across the six Midlands counties. Initial funding for the new development has been facilitated via major grants from organisations such as the Department for Health and Social Care and the HELP Appeal. In addition, the charity will use a proportion of its modest reserves and undertake specific fundraising campaigns for areas of the new airbase, including the clinical simulation training suite, memory garden and community education zone. For more information on Midlands Air Ambulance Charity and the plans can be found at midlandsairambulance.com/ airbaseheadquarters and follow the organisation on social media. SCAS Ambulance service first to supply Covid-19 patients with home oxygen monitoring kits to spot deterioration Paramedics at South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) have become the first in the country to supply Covid-19 patients with home oxygen monitoring kits if they don’t require immediate admission to hospital but are at higher risk of complications. The initiative, which began in Hampshire but is now running across the Thames Valley region, will ensure patients who have mild symptoms but have other risk factors, such as age over 65 years, cancer or other health conditions, can monitor their oxygen levels and know when to seek help. The packs contain a pulse oximeter device, a symptom diary and a set of strict guidelines and are only distributed to patients who require emergency assessment by the ambulance service. The development follows recent research by clinicians at SCAS which identified that just a slight drop in blood oxygen levels - but within the normal range - could be an early important warning sign of deterioration in patients before the onset of breathlessness. In most cases of bacteria and non-Covid pneumonia, shortness of breath appears relatively early in the disease and ahead of any significant drop in oxygen levels, known as hypoxia. However, with Covid-19, a drop in oxygen levels often comes first, which is referred to as “silent hypoxia”, and patients can be significantly unwell by the time they become breathless. The team, which included SCAS Medical Director Dr John Black and Divisional Medical Director Professor Charles Deakin, studied almost 20,000 patients who called for an ambulance between March 1 and July 31 last year. They then analysed the oxygen levels of 1,080 confirmed Covid positive patients at the point they were initially assessed by paramedics at home. Patients whose blood oxygen levels dropped only 1% to 2% below 96% - still within the normal range of 94% to 98% - and showed no signs of shortness of breath often went on to require admission to intensive care and had a lower chance of survival. Following the study, which was led by Dr Matthew Inada-Kim, a Consultant in General and Acute Medicine at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and published as a pre-print via medRxiv, NHS England launched a nationwide rollout of its COVID Oximetry @home initiative. The project involves supplying home pulse oximetry kits to people who test positive and are at higher risk of complications, such as those with health conditions and the over 65s, with around 300,000 supplied to patients across the country so far by local health systems. The oximeters work by placing a clip on the end of a finger to measure oxygen in the blood and heart rate and, if oxygen levels drop to 94% or 93%, patients are asked to call their GP or NHS 111 – or 999 if it falls to 92% or less. “Our original research helped to inform the wider rollout of the COVID Oximetry @home project to enable patients in high-risk groups to monitor their blood oxygen levels directly and help ensure timely referral to hospital when indicated,” said Dr Black. “We are now pleased to be the first ambulance service to offer pulse oximeters to patients along with guidance once we have assessed them and determined they don’t need to be taken to hospital but are at increased risk of their condition changing. “It provides patients with the reassurance that they can keep regular check on their oxygen levels independently and seek the help they need if their levels drop below 95%, while for us it means our clinicians can leave patients knowing they have the ability to spot any change promptly and take swift action.” Dr Inada-Kim, who is also the National Clinical Lead for Deterioration at NHS England, said: “SCAS has produced groundbreaking research that has informed national policy and led to the evolution of the COVID home oximetry model and its staff are again leading the way with this new project to help identify patients at risk as early as possible.” An additional tab is being added to paramedics’ electronic patient record devices to allow them to record the provision of a pulse oximeter to help with a retrospective review of the effectiveness of the initiative. Dr Black added: “It is hoped that prompt identification of hypoxia through home oximetry will lead to earlier admission to hospital for patients who subsequently deteriorate. This has the potential to improve the clinical outcomes of Covid-19 patients who develop complications.” If a patient does not suffer any further complications and makes a recovery at home they are asked to return the device after 14 days to their own GP Surgery or to their local COVID Oximetry @home service. AMBULANCE UK - APRIL For the latest Ambulance Service News visit: www.ambulancenewsdesk.com 51
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