How Did the Virtual Tour Go?
On the 28th of July Wesser had the pleasure of attending the London’s Air Ambulance quarterly educational talk.
It started off with Paramedic Ross delivering a fantastic virtual tour of their helipad on top of the Royal London Hospital. We were able to see what they keep in their medical equipment kits, which were all packed-up and ready to go for when they receive an emergency call!
Ross also showed us the helicopter and explained how a mission is launched. We discussed the procedure of completing a mission and how missions are reviewed to continuously make improvements to the service so the team can save more lives.
The missions undertaken by London’s Air Ambulance are incredibly important as they deal with the most life-threatening of injuries. For this reason, they require high levels of precision and outstanding teamwork to ensure the best possible outcomes for those in need of medical assistance. The downside of delivering this level of care…cost! Ross stated that “Wesser are very much a part of the team and without the fundraisers recruiting new donors every day their missions would not be possible”.
Q & A with Ross
The whole presentation was very insightful and inspired some interesting questions from the Wesser team. Here are a few examples of the questions raised and answered during the closing Q&A session.
Q – Have you always wanted to be a paramedic?
A – “No, I previously worked in advertising and marketing (13 years ago). I had seen an advert for a paramedic course and wanted to change my career.”
Q – What was the Thomas pack that was shown?
A – “We have to memorise everything that’s inside it so this will be a good test… drugs to put the patient to sleep, tube, monitor pack, blood pressure pump, fluids, all consumables and drugs for wounds and equipment for cardiac arrest.”
Q – How do you remain so positive?
A – “We are able to go to a psychotherapist which helps, and we realise it’s about the person in danger and not us, which keeps us motivated.”
Q – How heavy is the equipment?
A – “17 kilos, the monitor pack is really heavy, and we have to run with it!”
Q – Why isn’t London’s Air Ambulance funded by the government?
A – “It would cost a huge amount country wide, it’s massive. An expense they simply cannot afford.”
Q – Where does your job end and the NHS take over?
A –”We are the NHS, we work together, we follow up on patients even after the handover.”
Q – What happens in the debrief after the mission?
A – “It has to be positive as well as negative. We learn from every single job. We must go through how you did it and what you did for the patient; it’s all about learning.
We also do a rapid review of every case, we look at each job and what happened, why you made decisions on the job you had and have to think “How do I do this the best I can”. That’s why we debrief everything.”
