Ambulance staff face daily danger

Apr 14 2008 by Dave Black, The Journal

AMBULANCE staff in the North East have told of the dangers they can face when they arrive at the scene of a violent incident and have to confront drunken thugs before the police arrive.

Paramedics and ambulance crews are put in a “terrible dilemma” because they have been trained to save lives but are often putting their own safety at risk, according to research by the public services union Unison.

Research carried out by the union has been published ahead of its annual health workers’ conference, which opens in Manchester today and where the union will call for greater co-operation between the police and ambulance services to protect crews against alcohol-fuelled violence.

Ambulance service workers from the North-East have contributed to the research by recounting their own alarming experiences when arriving at the scene of late-night incidents to treat casualties.

Joel Byers, the Unison branch secretary for the North East Ambulance Service, who has more than 20 years’ experience, said dealing with drink and drug-related incidents was much more common than a few years ago.

He recalled turning up at the scene of a shooting before the police had arrived, and said that victims of drug overdoses often became violent when they were treated.

And Sharon Tiffen, a cardiac technician at Chester-le-Street ambulance station, said a colleague was treating a youth who had been attacked by a gang, but the gang returned and started to assault her simply because she was helping their victim.

Unison says paramedics and ambulance crews are facing growing problems of violence and verbal abuse.

The union, which represents 450,000 NHS staff, points out that the target emergency response time for ambulance crews is eight minutes, but there is no such target for the police.

It means crews often arrive first facing a potentially dangerous situation, and Unison says there is a danger that 999 workers are being turned into an extension of the security services.

A motion at this week’s conference will say that ambulance and other front line healthcare staff should be able to call for reinforcements if necessary to protect them.

Yesterday Karen Jennings, Unison’s head of health, said: “Paramedics are faced with a terrible dilemma when they arrive on scene and are faced with gangs of drunken thugs. We need greater co-ordination with the police to prioritise situations where ambulance crews may be walking into danger.

“Ambulances have an eight minute response time target that they have to hit but this leaves a danger zone. Paramedics have to decide whether it is safe to get to the patient or whether they should wait for the police to arrive at some unspecified time.”