The Daily Echo 27 March 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Thu 27th Mar 2008

Some of you may have seen a television programme last Friday which featured the work of BASICS doctors. These doctors are members of The British Association for Immediate Care and, voluntarily, provide life saving support to our ambulance crews. I have the highest regard for our ambulance service but there are times when the medical skills required in an emergency situation are beyond the expertise of their most highly trained staff.

So, on hundreds of occasions over the last year the ambulance crews have asked if a BASICS doctor is available to attend an accident. Because the doctors are volunteers they are only able to attend some of the incidents where they could be of help.

Despite the name, these doctors are highly trained and many put in a full days work for the NHS in areas such as intensive care or accident and emergency. Contrary to what I had assumed from watching one too many episodes of Casualty the Accident and Emergency doctors are not generally called out to accident scenes and, during their paid working day, stay within the confines of their department.

Is this something that we should be concerned about? Last year the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcomes and Deaths produced a report called "Trauma, Who cares?". It investigated the quality of emergency care in cases of very serious injury. The report made worrying reading as it concluded that 60% of patients received a standard of care that was less than good practice. These are the cases where optimum emergency care can have a significant impact on the quality of life post recovery. The report also mentioned that the organisation of pre hospital care, the trauma team response, seniority of staff involvement and immediate in-hospital care was found to be deficient in many cases.

As if that wasn't enough it went on to say that the "current structure of pre hospital management is insufficient to meet the needs of the severely injured patient".

A damning report but it appears that absolutely nothing is being done to address the issues raised. It is true that such severe accidents are not the most common but when people suffer a serious injury that is when they need our help the most.

At the moment whether we receive that help depends on whether a voluntary doctor is available at the time. Surely, we should be doing better than this?

Published with kind permission of The Daily Echo