EEAST General Broadcast: Recent Episodes
East of England Ambulance Service
General Broadcast covers the whole of the Ambulance service, from clinical to non-technical skills, from best practice to learning from incidents and more.
It's a chance to hear from experts about the latest developments in the industry, thought-provoking ideas and innovations all in the world of the NHS and EEAST in particular. It's not just blue lights and sirens!
Whether you work for an ambulance service or just want to learn more, it's the best place to hear about the world of the ambulance service.
Front line crews these days can be called to a wide variety of jobs. More often, the ambulance service is called to patients experiencing episodes of poor mental health. it's important to understand how clinicians can support patients through these experiences.
This week, Safeguarding Lead Ben, Patient Safet Lead Ant, and Patient Safety Specialist Lou talk about their experience of the mental capacity act, what it is and what it isn't, as well as safeguarding patients within the AOC.
If you have any feedback please email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk.
TRIGGER WARNING- this podcast talks about the death of premature babies.
Working in the community means that clinicians can be faced with any type of incident. This means needing the right equipment to deal with whatever they face.
In the tragic and rare cases where a premature baby has died, it has been in the past difficult to find a safe and dignified solution for baby to be transported with parents. The cuddle pocket is designed to be a compassionate way of carrying a baby from the community to the hospital.
Damon Weddon, Clinical Lead, sits down with Jordan, Jenni McGlagish (Patient Safety Specialist) and Denise Kendall (Safety Advisor) to talk about how the Trust commissioned the pockets and how to use them.
If you have any feedback please feel free to email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk
Childbirth in the community can be one of the most challenging jobs any frontline clinician faces.
Clinical Lead Damon Weddon and Patient Safety Integration Lead Jordan Nicholls sit down with Rose Bedford, Consultant Midwife in East and North Herts NHS Trust. They talk about common challenges with delivery, misconceptions and top tips about what to do when delivering a baby.
If you have any questions or feedback please email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk
There are few roles like the emergency services, where you train to deal with the unexpected in challenging environments, but most of those roles are based in the military. None more so than flying a jet fighter into a war zone. Having to think and work under extreme pressure, all while controlling a machine capable of breaking the sound barrier. It's a tall order.
Mandy Hickson was the only female pilot on her Front Line Tornado Squadron, flying multimillion pound fast jets for the Royal Air Force. She has operated in hostile environments, including patrolling the 'No Fly' zone over Iraq. Carrying the latest weaponry she and her unit were ready to drop ordnance on any target in support of operations.
As a trained Human Factors facilitator with the Civil Aviation Authority, Mandy uses her in depth knowledge of aviation, calculated risk taking, decision making under pressure and the critical role of the human in the system to transfer these lessons from the cockpit to the corporate boardroom.
Emily Crosby is a Newly Qualified Paramedic in EEAST with a keen interest in crew resource management and and the psychological factors of working in a stressful environment. Her interest in these topics makes her perfect to talk with Mandy, to compare and contrast experiences and help show how people fresh in a challenging role can learn from experience.
Mandy's book can be found here
Twitter:@MandyHickson
If you have any feedback please email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk. Thank you for listening and stay safe.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We cannot care for our patients if we don't take care of ourselves.
In these incredibly challenging times it is vital that we take time to look after ourselves, to give us the strength and ability to continue during what is likely to be a challenging winter for the NHS.
There is a huge amount of support and guidance out there, which in itself can be difficult to navigate. Below is a selection of links and resources to give you some guidance on where you can get support and tools to help support your mental wellbeing, however please also follow the support available in your organisation where possible.
For EEAST staff, please speak to your line manager, or search EAST24 for resources available to the Trust.
Dr Ester Murray podcast giving some great tips and tricks on coping with extreme challenges.
NHS employers guide to help and resources
Samaritans or call 116 213
Guided breathing for stress from the NHS
Thank you so much for everything you do. Be kind to yourself and others. Take care
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
It's important to think about how we are safe on the front line, doing the work day in and day out, but how do our polices, processes and practices across an entire organisation impact the safety of our work?
Steven Shorrock is an interdisciplinary humanistic, systems and design practitioner interested in human work from multiple perspectives.He currently specialises as a human factors and safety specialist in air traffic control in Europe, but has worked across most safety critical sectors.
We talk about how policies can interfere with each other, how hierarchy impacts performance and reflecting on incidents in this fascinating chat.
Steven's blog can be found here Humanistic Systemsand he's also on Twitter @StevenShorrock.
Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to hear more please subscribe, leave us a review and feedback to us at @EEAST_Safety or email me at jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
After a short break we're back with even more from the world of safety!
With more industry experts, clinical advice and general chat, this is set to be another fantastic series.
Thank you all so much for listening so far. The feedback has been incredible and we're more set than ever to bring you more great content.
If you have any ideas for episodes, or would like to give feedback, please email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk or tweet us @EastEnglandAmb or @EEAST_Safety
We all have to deal with pressure. Sometimes it's minor like "do I go left or right at the roundabout?". Sometimes it's the difference between life and death. But how can we manage and work with that pressure, rather than against it?
Dr Stephen Hearns is a critical care doctor and search and rescue specialist in Scotland, who has spent his career understanding what pressure is and how he can try to handle it in stressful times. His new book 'Peak performance under pressure' goes into detail about the tools and techniques we can all use to manage stress when the going gets tough.
This week, Jordan and Stephen talk about why pressure is sometimes good for us, how to recognise stress in other and what to do when you're maxed out.
Stephen can be found at his website https://corecognition.co.uk/
His online courses can be found at https://www.corecognitioncourses.co.uk/
He's also on Twitter @StephenHearns1
As always, if you have any feedback please email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The understanding of human factors in clinical settings has grown massivley over the last 15 or so years. The idea that adverse events are just 'one of those things' is something healthcare is rapidly moving away from.
One of the leading champions in this field is Martin Bromiley. A pilot and instructor, who's wife sadly died during a routine procedure, Martin worked with the NHS Trust to truly understand the rot causes of the incident. He then championed patient safety across the country, founding the Clinical Human Factors Group and having a supportive role in the formation of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch.
Jordan Nicholls, Patient Safety Integration Lead, talks to Martin about what safety truly is, how to check yourself in a stressful situation, how to work with people you may not know in high stress situations and what organisations can do to support psychological safety in their Trusts.
For more informaiton about CHFG please visit- https://chfg.org/
For resources on human factors furing Covid-19 please visit- https://chfg.org/category/all-resources/covid-19/
If you'd like to leave some feedback please email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Please note this episode contains swearing taken from qualitative research
The only way to learn is to understand what we've done well, and what we can improve on. The only way we can do that is identify events where something's happened.
The NHS in general is known to have challenges with reporting cultures, and staff feeling they are able to speak up. This is a challenge when organisations want to learn what's going wrong, or right, and why.
Richard Smith is the Head of Quality and Safety at Addenbrooks Hospital, and has written a paper on incident reporting in a UK Ambulance Service. He talks about staffs fear of punishment, both formal and informal, as well as the wider culture around error within healtchare.
If you have any feedback plaese email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk
Follow @EEAST_Safety on Twitter
Critical care paramedics bring more than just advanced clinical skills, they also have a huge amount of non-technical tricks can help keep patients and staff safe at scene and make the best choices.
This week, Patient Safety Integration Lead Jordan sits down (virtually) with Lou Rosson and Chris Neil, who break down what happens before they get to a job, what they're thinking at scene and how they rely on the team to make the best decisions for the patient.
If you'd like to get in touch, email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk.
There has never been a wider mix of illnesses and issues seen by the UK ambulance services. There's also never been more different care pathways. It can sometimes be hard to know what the best thing to do is.
Choice fatigue, along with patients sometime presenting in the same way as others can lead crews to make some challenging decisions.
In this episode, some of the patient safety team sit down to talk about what's important when leaving a patient at home, what safety nedding needs to be in place and why just writing WAG on a PCR isn't enough!
If you have any feedback, please email jordan.nicholls@eastamb.nhs.uk.
This week, patient safety Integration Lead Jordan sits down (over Microsft Teams) with Andy Collen.
Andy is a paramedic who has completed a huge range of roles, including being the meds & prescribing lead for the College of Paramedics, a national investigator for the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch and has written a book about decision making in paramedic practice.
Decision Making in Paramedic Practice- https://www.classprofessional.co.uk/?id=204310&fromsearch=true#iosfirsthighlight
This week, Clinical Lead Daimon Wheddon and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital's Dr Caroline Barry, sit down to talk ReSPECT.
The ReSPECT process provides a written record of patients' treatment preference and focuses on treatments to be considered as well as those that are not wanted or would not work.
People with a complete ReSPECT form do not require a separate DNACPR form although it is important to be aware that a patient can have a ReSPECT form and still be in favour of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
ReSPECT aims to inform decision making for ambulance clinicians when the patient may lose capacity to make decisions for themselves.
With stroke patients, time is brain.
Dan Phillips, EEAST Clinical Lead, sits down to talk more about 10-10 and why it's so important on the road.
Dr Esther Murray is a Health Psychologist working at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry. She has a keen interest in moral injury, the term used when people are witness to shocking or traumatic events that change their outlook on the world.
Jordan, EEAST's Patient Safety Integration Lead, sat down with her on the phone to talk about moral injury and how it can impact ambulance crews, as well as what we can all do to help each other