Comments on: “Taxi…!!!” http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/ The Ramblings of a Paramedic Stretcher Monkey Tue, 14 May 2013 10:12:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Cheapxbox360 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-5663 Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:55:56 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-5663 free xbox 360 console

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]]> By: kingmagic http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2331 Tue, 15 May 2007 23:21:31 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2331 Thanks SD.

The gist of the post was not about charging per se, but about the many jobs that crews up and down the country go to where an ambulance has been ordered by a G.P. or the family wont transport due to “other commitments”.

A crew will transport a patient who needs monitoring/treating due to an illness or injury or simply if the patient cannot walk.

Its just one of the many examples where the Ambulance Service is used inappropriately.

However I do accept that in most cases its just down to a case of not thinking it through and lack of education.

I know of lots of G.P.s who will always ask the patient if they can get to the hospital under their own steam…obviously only if their condition allows.

The other side of the coin, and lots of colleagues will back me up on this with their own examples, are the times when we see severely ill or injured people being brought by private car into A/E. When asked why they invariably say that they did not think it was serious enough to get an ambulance!

Again its due to a lack of education. A recent case in point was one that I witnessed whilst working in A/E on secondment: a woman drove herself to A/E after suffering partial thickness burns to her entire left arm. She was in agony and how she never crashed the car is a miracle!

Just to reiterate, we get called to lots of jobs where we are just being used as a transport medium. The phrase “off legs!” rarely matches up to the patients condition.

]]> By: ecparamedic http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2329 Tue, 15 May 2007 22:23:41 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2329 I’m not suggesting charging the patient direct, not under these circumstances at least, though there are certain circumstances where they should be fined. However that isn’t the point of this post.

As the much publicised GP targets have shown, if you attach a financial incentive to meeting a target the GPs will make damn sure they hit the target, likewise if you attach a financial penalty……….. work it out.

You could achieve all sorts within the NHS if all staff had a material incentive to deliver the goods… sadly this would never happen as it’s cheaper to throw threats around and spin failure into success.

SD

]]> By: traineeparamedic http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2328 Tue, 15 May 2007 21:26:35 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2328 I agree with both the charging and the elderly points, although generally from what I’ve seen so far, elderly people don’t dial 999 for no reason. However I have seen a few people that could make their own way to A&E. I would think that for charging to be introduced, at least the crew and a doctor or sister at A&E would have to sign off that it was unnecessary.

]]> By: Emma http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2305 Tue, 15 May 2007 11:57:25 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2305 Unfortunately the people who you are targeting would probably be exempt for some reason, see today’s Times in relation to GB trying to get the GP’s to offer OOH and NHS Blog Doctor’s reply about ingrowing toenails etc.,

I did reply that if he doesn’t get them the ambulance service will…

]]> By: Lee http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2303 Tue, 15 May 2007 08:04:01 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2303 The money is more or less in the same pot, no matter who you give the budget to. The surgeries should have there own ambulances funded by themselves, and when not in use should be on standby to cover emergency situations. My dad was in the fire brigade for 35 years and now there is talk of putting paramedics on the fire engines i think that would help emergency situations.

]]> By: Ellis James http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2301 Tue, 15 May 2007 07:44:26 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2301 The only problem I can see with charging patients for unneccessary transport is that it may well deter elderly patients from calling an ambulance.
Most elderly people are apologetic when we turn up even when it’s obvious they need help, so if they thought that there was a possibility that they may be charged….

]]> By: ecparamedic http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2299 Tue, 15 May 2007 06:14:29 +0000 http://kingmagic.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/taxi/#comment-2299 Couldn’t agree more, if the practices were billed for taking an emergency vehicle off the road I think we’d see a shift from our seemingly default position of cheap taxi.

SD

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