Beth Vernon the Loyalty manager – Registered Paramedic, attended the meeting to answer any questions or concerns about the service. Her role includes making sure the staff give the patient the best possible care.

One question got asked around the Hospital Passport, Beth explained that it is useful when people have the passport as they can see all their details and it makes it easier however not all paramedics will use them even though she would like them to.

Information which is included on the passport is important as you cannot get relevant details about someone’s through a conversation with someone who is hurt.

The passports get renewed every 6-12 months to see if anything has changed and for that to be updated.

It also helps when the elder generation have a carer folder, which is like the passport.

Beth explained the different categories you had to be in and how the system works for everyone to get a better understanding of it. The scale goes on least poorly to extremely critical. The service goes all over South Yorkshire treating patients and taking them to the closest hospital to where they are near. If an ambulance is on a job to someone who’s injury is not as bad as someone is unconscious and can’t breathe they will re locate the job to make sure that the person who is in a critical state gets cared for first.

As the service works all over South Yorkshire there are times when some towns don’t have any ambulances, so the ambulance has to drive from their location to the person in another town who is injured, they will get the closest ambulance to the person.

South Yorkshire Ambulance run NHS 111, they are the only County that do this. The NHS 111 service can provide an ambulance if the symptoms over the phone and the criteria provides you with one.

There will be significant changes in the Ambulance service, they send cars out now as a first port of call even though most of the time people need a big ambulance to take them to hospital. They are going to decrease the number of cars and have them just for minor injuries and have the big ambulances for more serious cases. This will make a big difference as there will be more ambulances for more serious injuries, the care will be provided quicker. 

When new people are recruited, some paramedics are more trained/experienced than others so usually they have 3 people on one ambulance so they can develop each other’s skills and learn/pick things up better and quicker. There is usually 1 experienced paramedic and 2 just qualified.

All staff get trained on how to defend themselves also how to talk people out of situations.

Ambulances have to make sure they stop at red light to make sure it is safe to go, if it’s not safe they cannot go through. It breaks the law if someone goes through a red light to move out the way for an ambulance if it is putting other people’s lives in danger.

If someone is in the back on an ambulance in a critical situation and they drive by another incident, the driver should drive by the incident taking the patient to the hospital for them to get treated whilst making sure another ambulance has set off for the person they have just seen.