patient safety

TXA for HEMS patients with suspected haemorrhage

A service evaluation was performed with analysis of patient outcome by the review of patient report forms (PRFs). Patients who received pre-hospital TXA were identified and further analysis of their...

Efficacy and safety of methoxyflurane: managing trauma associated pain in UK SAR helicopter paramedic practice

The PRISMA system is the accepted methodology for systematic reviews; it is primarily focused on evaluating randomised trials and synthesising meta-analysis (PRISMA, 2015). It became apparent early in...

Stay on the ambulance long enough and you'll go full circle: an evaluation of the clinical safety and effectiveness of non-emergency and multi-occupancy ambulance conveyance in non-emergency percutaneous coronary intervention patients

Identification of previous studies within UK Ambulance Services was undertaken initially to identify any data to support or refute the proposed study. A similar study was identified internally with...

An overview of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

Each year approximately 6,000 new cases of HIV are diagnosed within the United Kingdom, adding to over 100,000 people who are known to be living with HIV (Skingsley et al, 2015; Terrence Higgins...

Primum non nocere: first, do no harm

Protecting the public and enhancing patient safety is the first concern of the paramedic (Health and Care Professions Council, 2016). Patient safety is a challenge globally and requires knowledge and...

Adrenal insufficiency: improving paramedic practice

The prevalence of adrenal insufficiency in the UK is 110 to 120 per million and rising (Simmons–Holcomb, 2006). Chakera and Vaidya (2009) observe that Addison's disease has an incidence of 4.7–6.2 per...

Falls assessment and prevention in older people: an evaluation of the Crisis Response Service

The CRS in Northamptonshire comprises a range of health and social care professionals within partner organisations providing a variety of clinical, health and social care assessments and...

Delivering enhanced safety, productivity and experience: early results from a frequent caller management system

999 activity increased by 6.9% last year (Anderson, 2013) with incidents resulting in an ambulance service clinician attending scene increasing by 4% (Anderson, 2013) and patients discharged on scene...

Single-dose activated charcoal as a pre-hospital treatment for self-poisoning

A search strategy was undertaken of medical and nursing databases including Medline, Cinahl, Embase, Psychinfo, the Cochrane database of systematic reviews, together with the British Medical Journal...