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safety
ethics
ethics
decision-making

Plan for quality improvement: the ‘Legal High’ Guide

02 January 2016
Features
02 January 2016
Volume 8 · Issue 1

Abstract

‘Legal highs’ are responsible for increasing public mortality and A&E admissions. Research into these products are limited and prolonged processes. New legislations being enforced are potentially leading to new chemicals being manufactured and released for sale with no approved research of known effects. Front-line clinicians are untrained and unfamiliar with the effects of these new drugs and are limited in their practice to symptomatic treatment. This study intends to introduce the idea of a researched and referenced ‘Legal high’ guide through the medium of an ‘app’ or pocket guide for clinician education, safety netting and improved patient care.

This article is an amended version of the winning poster entry of the UK Student Paramedic Conference 2015.

Legal highs are becoming increasingly popular within the UK population, resulting in increased public morbidity, mortality and strain on the NHS. The number of admissions and exact cost to the NHS is unknown, but since 2009 deaths definitively associated with ‘legal highs’ had risen to 97 in 2012, with statistics expecting to rise further (BBC, 2015). These products have multiple terms, but for this proposal bath salts, new psychoactive substances, designer drugs, plant food, and party drugs will be known under the umbrella term of ‘legal highs’. ‘Legal highs’ are widely available and often marked as: ‘not for human consumption’ (Gibbons, 2012). However, despite the warnings, members of the public continue to consume these chemicals for leisure and the psychoactive effects they induce (Ratnapalan, 2013).

This proposal is to introduce a pre-hospital referenced ‘legal high’ guide (LHG) to clinicians in order to educate staff and improve patient care quality through the instigation of a paperback pocket guide or downloadable application for smartphone and tablet technologies.

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A&E admissions
Legal highs
Legal High Guide