Speaker Gareth Thomas. Wales Ambulance Service.
Wed, Feb 13th 2019 at 7:30 am - 8:40 am
Gareth Thomas. Wales Ambulance Service and Message in a bottle.
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Today we welcomed to breakfast as our speaker Gareth Thomas, Community Relations Officer for the Wales NHS Ambulance Trust .
He
told us about the changes that have been made in the last two years to
the way in which the Trust organises its response to the many demands
made upon it, so that the service is better able to deliver an
appropriate response to emergency calls.
When an emergency
call is received, the call handler now asks a set of structured
questions to ascertain whether this is a life-threatening "red"event, in
which case an ambulance is always sent immediately, or something that
does not require such an urgent response - "amber". The call handlers
are backed up by qualified medical staff including doctors, who get
involved if there are queries. "Red" calls only amount to about 5% of
the 999 calls received. Ambulances are backed up by paramedics in well
equipped response cars who can deal with "amber" events.
Gareth's
talk also brought us up to date on the NHS Direct/111 service which is
being expanded, and the many other ways in which the Ambulance Trust
serves us, and made mention of the "Message in a Bottle" scheme which is
promoted by the club. The little green bottles are carried by the
crews who distribute them to vulnerable people living at home.
