Ambulance UK August 2022

NEWSLINE
patient to hospital, to managing
more than half of patients onscene.
During the COVID-19 pandemic,
Adrian was asked to focus on
infection prevention and control,
providing senior leadership for a
range of projects, including the
introduction of improved PPE for
staff and the launch of the staff
vaccination programme.
Adrian says: “To be honest, I was
quite taken aback to find myself
on the New Year’s Honour’s List.
“My role over the years has been
to constantly focus on the care
we provide to our patients, and
to support developments which
improve that care.
“The clinical team provide a toolkit
of guidelines and interventions for
our frontline clinicians. However,
it’s our clinicians who then take
that toolkit, and use it to deliver
the best care they can to our
patients.
“They’ve worked tirelessly
delivering care throughout the
pandemic and they are the ones
who really deserve an award.”
The Queen’s Ambulance Service
Medal is awarded to a handful
of people each year who have
given service characterised by
exceptional devotion to duty and
marked by outstanding ability.
Adrian, who graduated from
the University of Hertfordshire in
2002 as one of the first degreelevel
paramedics in the UK, was
appointed Deputy Director of
Clinical Care for SWASFT in 2010.
Groundbreaking
Coventry University
research could
hand life-saving
boost to paramedics
treating pedestrian
casualties
Groundbreaking Coventry
University research could
provide paramedics with crucial
and potentially life-saving
assistance when treating
pedestrians hurt in road
accidents.
A detailed database of pedestrian
injuries is being developed
alongside a mathematical model,
which can reverse-engineer
pedestrian collisions and produce
first-hand virtual CT scans from
simple photographs of a patient’s
injuries and the vehicle involved.
These virtual CT scans of the
body can inform paramedics,
in seconds, about the victim’s
potential internal injuries per
organ, enabling the correct
treatment at the scene. The
information could also be sent to
a hospital, thus speeding up the
triage and improving the treatment
of the casualty upon their arrival in
Accident and Emergency units.
Dr Christophe Bastien and
colleagues at Coventry
University’s research Centre
for Future Transport and Cities
are developing this Forensic
Pedestrian Trauma Database
(FPTD) in conjunction with
University Hospitals Coventry and
Warwickshire (UHCW) following
funding support from The Road
Safety Trust.
The research has been chosen
as a winner of the Prince Michael
International Road Safety Award
which recognises outstanding
achievement and innovation
in worldwide road safety
improvement.
Dr Christophe Bastien, Associate
Professor (Academic) at Coventry
University’s Centre for Future
Transport and Cities, said: “The
mathematical model, with the help
of basic photography, essentially
reverse-engineers pedestrian
collisions, which through our
framework can then provide
paramedics with key information
on potential injuries they usually
would not have access to whilst
responding to an incident onscene.
We’re optimistic about
the potential of such crucial
assistance to help paramedics
save the lives and improve the
treatment of pedestrians who
have been involved in traffic
collisions and incidents.
“In the long term, we’re very
hopeful that we can develop our
detailed framework into something
that can be rolled out within the
NHS and to health care services
around the world.
“For me and the teams, winning
the Prince Michael International
Road Safety Award represents the
crowning of decades of research,
positioning Coventry University as
a respected and highly credible
transport safety research partner
worldwide.
“Our next step is to secure
funding to continue the
development of the FPTD. Our
research brings huge interest from
hospitals, ambulance services,
transport forensics and the
police.”
Gary Gilkes has worked in the
ambulance service for the last
ten years as a paramedic as
well as lecturing at universities
across the country. He’s attended
multiple serious incidents and
also works to help implement
new ideas within the NHS and the
ambulance service.
He said: “Pedestrian trauma
injuries can be very emotional and
human factors can slow down
the process of triage, so having
a way to speed up this process
and minimise these human factors
would undoubtedly improve
patient outcomes and save lives.
“It’s unquestionable that speed
in terms of the speed of getting
patients into hospitals and starting
treatment saves lives – the quicker
we can do that the better chance
the patient has.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that
this research and this framework
will certainly improve the speed in
which clinicians can triage injury
patterns to be able to update
hospitals so they can prepare
treatment packages and we can
start early interventions treatment
on scene so these injuries don’t
cause life-changing scenarios or
conditions.”
Sally Lines, CEO of The Road
Safety Trust, said: “The findings
from the research that Coventry
University has conducted have
the potential to assist the UK
Police Force and Accident and
Emergency departments with
road traffic collision insight. As
a charity dedicated to achieving
zero road deaths and serious
injuries on UK roads through our
grants, we are excited by the fact
that this research can help save
lives in the future.”
The virtual CT scans have been
developed and validated using
the Total Human Model for Safety
(THUMS) which has been devised
by the Toyota Motor Corporation
and Toyota Central R&D Labs.
AMBULANCE UK - AUGUST
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