The paramedic’s role in reducing avoidable deaths

The Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, has put out a call to action on reducing avoidable deaths. The aim is to reduce avoidable deaths through improvements in the fight against the five major causes of deaths. If successful, this fight against premature mortality could result in a reduction of 30 000 deaths by 2020. This is a tall order and the size of the challenge is considerable. There will need to be recourses (financial and material) made available, and this will have to be done against a backdrop of the swinging austerity measures that are in place. The government will be expected to play its part, but so too will other members of the NHS, including paramedics.

Living Well for Longer: A call to action to reduce premature mortality (Department of Health, 2013) is an initiative that has been launched by the Department of Health (DH). The introduction of the initiative suggests the government are making a concerted effort to work with all health care providers to improve the health of the nation. This is to be achieved by tackling the main causes of premature morality. The five big killer diseases are: