- Joined
- Jul 8, 2023
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
- 4
- Points
- 3
Suggestion Title: National Health Service Dispatch Regulations and Criteria
Division: NHS/LAS
Hello, You might have seen me in-game as an Advanced Paramedic, Control or Fire Fighter, as they are the divisions I mostly stick out in. I have over 50 hours in AP in around total of 1 month active time (when LOAs removed). I have problems and suggestions that is very crucial for the advanced paramedics AND their purpose. I have over 20 hours of AP hours and 2 declared ETHANE(R)s as ISC in just this month and these are what I have for you:
As you probably know Advanced Paramedics have trainings, which let them do a number of things. Including but not limited to; Initial Scene Command and Rural Response. These trainings allow Advanced Paramedics to do complicated or otherwise important tasks. Example being, Advanced Paramedics can become Initial Scene Commanders, which then can declare ETHANE(R). After an incident is declared Correct number of units can be dispatched to the correct access with hazards in mind. A plan for the incident can be made and if needed Command members can arrive to declare METHANE(R). It is similar with other trainings. Each one of them has a very important task that can decide the outcome of the incident. Rural Response Paramedics can respond to Rural Incidents, treat patients and transport them to nearest road for pickup by regular Ambulances. Otherwise just to retrieve the patients HART would be dispatched and then after HART does initial treatment and retrieves the person with Polaris they would bring it to paramedics for stabilisation. Rural Unit can do both of these tasks with faster than HART response times to rural areas. Bike Units, they can respond to the most isolated corner of the city Emergency Calls with lowest response time reasonably possible and when combined with ISC training, they are the fastest responding members of emergency services that can give ETHANE reports and declare incidents.
Now as you might have realised, most of the duties of Advanced Paramedics and their advantages not only are their advanced medical treatment capabilities, but if they are trained, they could be one of the most important assets during certain medical emergencies or possible major incidents. But there is an issue with the current state of the Advanced Paramedics. As it states above, Advanced Paramedics most usefulness comes from their response time advantages. Unfortunately as a fellow Advanced Paramedic, I do not remember being first on a scene since self dispatch was removed (Other than when there are no other LAS available). And even worse, most of the time I arrive on an actually important scene, there is already HEMS that self dispatched or was requested by regular Paramedics that were initially dispatched. Sometimes there is even HART on scene until they realize dispatching an Advanced Paramedic could be useful. Including Rural Incidents (When Rural Response Vehicle is Available) and High Casualty Incidents with no Command member Available but ISC trained Advanced Paramedics available. It is not even possible to get dispatched to a call where you could be very useful without requesting to be dispatched by control, which I will give an example in our second next part.
I have been to many scenes where I was literally not needed or was called to switch to a box ambulance for transportation. Or scenes that were literally within AP capabilities and/or for Advanced Paramedics where I was not dispatched but HART or HEMS was dispatched. All of the calls I recently attended that were not single unit injured by tripping or a civ making a scene for a regular paramedic but none being available and resulting in me being dispatched; Had already either HART or HEMS dispatched. What is worse is that HEMS is usually dispatched as priority unit if there is any suspicion that a critical injury might have happened. Including but not limited to Falling from height and Police Involved Shooting. So HEMS is usually the first on scene for possibly bad emergencies, which usually doesn't turn out to be correct or it is a random Police Constable that hit his head and declared that he has TBI now. Only half the scenes I responded that had HEMS actually needed HEMS and sometimes even the HEMS decides to request AP after arrival to the scene due to the scope of injuries and just do basic treatment to prevent a life extinct until AP arrives to take over. It is not just control of course, it is also regular units such as CW or NC after doing "Head to toe", deciding to request HEMS because they were medically capable enough to figure out the patient has TBI or other major injuries, instead of asking for an AP. It might be fine for TBI and other actually HEMS required injuries but I have witnessed paramedics calling HEMS for injuries in scope of AP which I suspect is due to them being more numerous or popular than APs at the moment.
Now here are some actual scenes that happened that I think were handled badly regarding unit requests/dispatch and are good examples for what I think the problems are, each showing different issues (starting from the newest incident);
Inefficient Dispatching (Units that don't need to be there being dispatched or units that would be better to dispatch would not be dispatched in favour of more common/popular units):
1- AFO requested LAS due to an officer shot and a suspect down. Similar location aside the M25 this time even closer to sandy to the point I can nearly see their location from sandy clinic. Initial Units dispatched by Control (Not joking): NC(Ambo)x2, CWx2, HEMS, TL, and me. When I arrived the scene AFO had already done first aid to the Shot officer and he didn't had any critical injuries, 4 GSWs, 2 to single leg, 2 to single arm. I gained IV access and pushed TXA to help with Bleeding and Hanged saline to help with blood loss. Then I proceeded to clean the wounds and apply packing bandage, celox and compression bandage to totally stop the bleedings. Had put on NBM due to low SPO2.The suspect down was already declared dead and at that point HEMS, all CWs and NCs had arrived which were just looking at me wondering what to do. To give HEMS something to do I literally told him to check behind ear due to one of the most popular critical injuries we have in server being TBI for any random reason of head touching anything (Mostly by untrained roleplayers) and to give the most senior paramedic on scene something to do. After treating the Officer's injuries I removed the initial first aid components that were put by the Medically trained AFOs. Then the TL3 arrived wondering what to even do and why so many units were dispatched to this scene. Which in the end only required an AP first responder and an ambulance for transport. And I believe even a regular Paramedic could have handled this call as there were no complications (Of course we cannot know if there will be complications but even so AP was more than enough and if needed other responders could be dispatched quickly enough upon APs judgement)
2- Car went flying into a construction ditch aside M25 just south of sandy, only access path is via dirt road that takes a minute to drive on via max speed of 40 MPH, and then there is the narrow walk path for half a minute at maximum speed of 20 (with off-road vehicle) and then the ditch that is difficult for even 4x4 dirt track vehicles to traverse (realistically) 5-10 meters where vehicle came to a stop in. Initial Units dispatched by Control: HART, LW(FRU), CW, NC(Ambo). First units to arrive on scene after several minutes; LW, CW. FRU secures the vehicle and takes the patient out carefully after figuring that there were no risks and no spinal injuries, asking where LAS was. HART informed that they were on M25 4 miles-ish out. At that point I decided to ask the control to dispatch me due to the situation (and me being a rural response paramedic). I was 1 mile out and arrived the scene in a few minutes. Checked the map for a good place where the Ambulance could be on standby for taking over the patient at and informed them of the position. Then I started initial treatment meanwhile the HART arrived with their polaris and asked what to do. At that point even the FRU told HART that as there was a rural vehicle that was a better option for carrying patients and the terrain wasn't bad enough to justify polaris and told HART to go back to St2. In the end the patient was declared life extinct due to lack of oxygen to brain in connection with too late medical response.
Failure of Dispatching (Units that are known will be required at the scene not being dispatched mostly due to lack of knowledge regarding that Unit/Capabilities.):
3- There was a scene regarding TSG several days ago which I still cannot forget due to how badly it was handled. I do not know what happened at the scene exactly but I know LAS was sent for staging (Excluding any APs). There was at least 4-5 Paramedics (3 Ambulances) , 3 CCPs (2 HEMS Units) dispatched. I do not remember what was done regarding dispatch of a command member from LAS. I just know that when I arrived there were no command units dispatched to the scene that was most likely going to be a big incident with units already staging. After 5-10 minutes the TSG were done and requested LAS to come in. I do not remember the exact number of injured but it was enough to declare an Incident. Few minutes after the green light was given to LAS they realized they don't have anyone to command the scene so they started asking in chat if any Command was available. After few minutes they realized ISC can also declare incidents and I was finally requested. Which then I was deployed as a bike team with another AP so we made st5 together. I was the last unit to arrive to the scene except 1 more HEMS unit asking if we need more units. When I arrived I declared ETHANER after assessing situation and informed control. There was a HEMS member trying to coordinate the scene (Which I am thankful of for trying to get a triage point going before I arrived) and trying to assign me to one of the triage points, until I managed to convince him somehow that HEMS isn't supposed to be the one commanding the scene and he should take care of patients as medically better trained one while I do my job as ISC which I better trained am than him. Started cooperating with TSG command and making progress in the scene. Although there were some problems they were minor and scene was resolved eventually, everyone going back st2 with most casualties being transported to hospital, including use of Helimed.
4- This is probably oldest and least I remember about from here, Another ETHANE scene, which was actually the first incident I had declared. It was a house raid made by AFO if I am not wrong, on the mountain villa. I do not know what happened prior to the raid but I would assume there was staging. When I was called in to the scene there was already HEMS and regular paramedics on scene treating individuals randomly inside the house with no triage. The reported number of casualties was 7. I declared significant incident (due to AP ISC limits) and tried to figure out a way we could solve this problem While other units were trying to assign me to patients and treat injured. I told them that I was trying to figure out a good triage point and they should be treating patients as I was going to be busy trying to manage the scene due to no TL being available. I declared ETHANER and a few more units made way to the location and even Ops1 came with mobile control center. In the end it was too late for most patients due to paramedics running around the house trying to find patients scattered around in need of help. Later Ops1 declared a METHANER. There was not enough place for triage and only Death Mat could be placed outside which filled very quickly. I will admit a part of this could have been my lack of experience at ISC due to it being my first but I believe ISC arriving at the staging phase would help a lot with planning and preparation and might have prevented some of the deaths.
These were all the examples. As you might be recollecting that I said I had declared 2 ETHANERs this month. Which both of them are example at failure of dispatching and ISC arriving at an already expected major incident scene AFTER the scene had began and units going around aimlessly to try and figure out what to do. I know that expecting everything to be perfect is wrong, as well as expecting newcomers of HEMS and Control to be doing their job perfectly. Nor expecting regular HEMS and Control members to do their jobs perfectly always. That is why my suggestion goes to NHS/LAS Division and not Control or College. But to the what we can realistically do.
In my opinion there are several options which of course I cannot claim that are perfect, but I believe are superior to expecting everything to go fine after just kindly notifying people that they should take into more consideration who they request or dispatch. I know that some of these suggestions might not be reasonable, realistic or otherwise preferable. I will give all of them here, with main priority being AP freedom due to APs at the moment being too limited by the other units that are favoured over AP. And it coming to the point of APs and their tasks being forgotten or never known at all. I had HEMS be shocked after they learned AP could do Scene Command (with proper training). I cannot believe it came to the point of us needing awareness for APs. Of course command members and veterans will most likely know all about this, but we aren't trying to have the APs be a special task force that only deploys once every week in friday patrols when Veterans/Command is active.
As the policies/regulations as they are we are not supposed to be requesting to be dispatched, but we hardly get dispatched in time to actually crucial scenes if we do not request it. And yes I have tried asking control via chat for dispatching instead of using radio as well. They are mostly too busy to respond to dispatch requests from chat. It usually comes to units on scene requesting AP or Control dispatching AP due to no other LAS available or call asking specifically for AP unless the Control is a veteran.
Anyways here are some suggestions I very much suggest that are implemented to fix the problems we are currently facing and possibly fix the problems that can arise from implementing the other suggestions below :
1.1 or 1.2
1.1- Emergency Assessment and Rapid Response Training;
A training for APs that can be done after all other trainings for AP are done and 24 hours AP deployment time requirement to ensure that they are serious about it. This training will teach them in what situations they are permitted to self dispatch and respond to calls as well as how to properly self dispatch. After this training they are permitted to self dispatch within the criteria. The requirements are so that we are sure they will be a needed asset for incidents and self dispatch might be crucial.
1.2- Changing regulations for AP trainings:
Making so that AP trainings allow an AP to self dispatch to incidents that the training is related to, examples being: Expected Big Incident ISC, Rural Call Rural unit, Cardiac Arrest for Cardiac Arrest leadership...
2- Advanced Paramedic Self Dispatch Report form:
To prevent abuse of the self dispatch this time, Advanced Paramedics will Have to put in a self dispatch form describing why a self dispatch was required in that situation and how he can justify it AFTER the scene every time they self dispatch. Command will check them to ensure there are no unnecessary/over-self dispatching. I believe people would be less likely to try and abuse self dispatch after they are requested to fill forms per dispatch. Even if it won't totally remove abuse of it, it could drastically reduce it.
Here are some suggestions that might be useful but not as crucial as above for the problems we face at the moment.
1- Specialist units deployment criteria:
Specialist units such as HEMS and HART can only be dispatched after certain criteria is met. As they are precious resources that are skilled in their arts, they must not be dispatched to every random call that goes through. before dispatching them every option must be ticked off. Such as dispatching HART to a person that injured their leg after tripping during jogging on the mountain. That is something with AP capability. And similar for HEMS, dispatching for Police Involved Shootings, they are also mostly within AP capability even if not, APs have the means of protecting life until HEMS arrives after it is deemed that they'd be needed. This can be thought like in Failed to Stops for MET, the Control will first ask for more RTPC units. We can think of it like AP. But if there is no available they will ask for TPAC units, which AFOs can be dispatched to FTSs in that way, similar for HEMS and HART. I know it might not be the best outcome for members of these divisions so I have not put it into crucial suggestions part. It can also be done so that these units can be requested after AP assessment of the situation as a bypass for criteria.
I had several more in mind + more things to talk about but I started forgetting. I think I have been writing this for more than 3 hours now and it has become midnight. I might add more under this message later. I will leave it at this for today due to my mental processing power being left half of what I started with. I just want to say that I don't blame anyone for the problems stated above because they started occurring after a chain of events that when merged together created this situation; Removal of Self Dispatch, Intake of HEMS and Intake of Control. Many HEMS active, deploying even more than LAS and as better paramedics they are naturally favoured by those that do not think over options too much. New Controllers that don't have enough experience yet and are basically regular units with basic control training which would lead them to favour HEMS like others. And as AP cannot self dispatch their hands are tied. All of these had their own parts in the problems, which could be tolerated on their own but when they came together, it becomes difficult to do proper AP duties.
Division: NHS/LAS
Hello, You might have seen me in-game as an Advanced Paramedic, Control or Fire Fighter, as they are the divisions I mostly stick out in. I have over 50 hours in AP in around total of 1 month active time (when LOAs removed). I have problems and suggestions that is very crucial for the advanced paramedics AND their purpose. I have over 20 hours of AP hours and 2 declared ETHANE(R)s as ISC in just this month and these are what I have for you:
As you probably know Advanced Paramedics have trainings, which let them do a number of things. Including but not limited to; Initial Scene Command and Rural Response. These trainings allow Advanced Paramedics to do complicated or otherwise important tasks. Example being, Advanced Paramedics can become Initial Scene Commanders, which then can declare ETHANE(R). After an incident is declared Correct number of units can be dispatched to the correct access with hazards in mind. A plan for the incident can be made and if needed Command members can arrive to declare METHANE(R). It is similar with other trainings. Each one of them has a very important task that can decide the outcome of the incident. Rural Response Paramedics can respond to Rural Incidents, treat patients and transport them to nearest road for pickup by regular Ambulances. Otherwise just to retrieve the patients HART would be dispatched and then after HART does initial treatment and retrieves the person with Polaris they would bring it to paramedics for stabilisation. Rural Unit can do both of these tasks with faster than HART response times to rural areas. Bike Units, they can respond to the most isolated corner of the city Emergency Calls with lowest response time reasonably possible and when combined with ISC training, they are the fastest responding members of emergency services that can give ETHANE reports and declare incidents.
Now as you might have realised, most of the duties of Advanced Paramedics and their advantages not only are their advanced medical treatment capabilities, but if they are trained, they could be one of the most important assets during certain medical emergencies or possible major incidents. But there is an issue with the current state of the Advanced Paramedics. As it states above, Advanced Paramedics most usefulness comes from their response time advantages. Unfortunately as a fellow Advanced Paramedic, I do not remember being first on a scene since self dispatch was removed (Other than when there are no other LAS available). And even worse, most of the time I arrive on an actually important scene, there is already HEMS that self dispatched or was requested by regular Paramedics that were initially dispatched. Sometimes there is even HART on scene until they realize dispatching an Advanced Paramedic could be useful. Including Rural Incidents (When Rural Response Vehicle is Available) and High Casualty Incidents with no Command member Available but ISC trained Advanced Paramedics available. It is not even possible to get dispatched to a call where you could be very useful without requesting to be dispatched by control, which I will give an example in our second next part.
I have been to many scenes where I was literally not needed or was called to switch to a box ambulance for transportation. Or scenes that were literally within AP capabilities and/or for Advanced Paramedics where I was not dispatched but HART or HEMS was dispatched. All of the calls I recently attended that were not single unit injured by tripping or a civ making a scene for a regular paramedic but none being available and resulting in me being dispatched; Had already either HART or HEMS dispatched. What is worse is that HEMS is usually dispatched as priority unit if there is any suspicion that a critical injury might have happened. Including but not limited to Falling from height and Police Involved Shooting. So HEMS is usually the first on scene for possibly bad emergencies, which usually doesn't turn out to be correct or it is a random Police Constable that hit his head and declared that he has TBI now. Only half the scenes I responded that had HEMS actually needed HEMS and sometimes even the HEMS decides to request AP after arrival to the scene due to the scope of injuries and just do basic treatment to prevent a life extinct until AP arrives to take over. It is not just control of course, it is also regular units such as CW or NC after doing "Head to toe", deciding to request HEMS because they were medically capable enough to figure out the patient has TBI or other major injuries, instead of asking for an AP. It might be fine for TBI and other actually HEMS required injuries but I have witnessed paramedics calling HEMS for injuries in scope of AP which I suspect is due to them being more numerous or popular than APs at the moment.
Now here are some actual scenes that happened that I think were handled badly regarding unit requests/dispatch and are good examples for what I think the problems are, each showing different issues (starting from the newest incident);
Inefficient Dispatching (Units that don't need to be there being dispatched or units that would be better to dispatch would not be dispatched in favour of more common/popular units):
1- AFO requested LAS due to an officer shot and a suspect down. Similar location aside the M25 this time even closer to sandy to the point I can nearly see their location from sandy clinic. Initial Units dispatched by Control (Not joking): NC(Ambo)x2, CWx2, HEMS, TL, and me. When I arrived the scene AFO had already done first aid to the Shot officer and he didn't had any critical injuries, 4 GSWs, 2 to single leg, 2 to single arm. I gained IV access and pushed TXA to help with Bleeding and Hanged saline to help with blood loss. Then I proceeded to clean the wounds and apply packing bandage, celox and compression bandage to totally stop the bleedings. Had put on NBM due to low SPO2.The suspect down was already declared dead and at that point HEMS, all CWs and NCs had arrived which were just looking at me wondering what to do. To give HEMS something to do I literally told him to check behind ear due to one of the most popular critical injuries we have in server being TBI for any random reason of head touching anything (Mostly by untrained roleplayers) and to give the most senior paramedic on scene something to do. After treating the Officer's injuries I removed the initial first aid components that were put by the Medically trained AFOs. Then the TL3 arrived wondering what to even do and why so many units were dispatched to this scene. Which in the end only required an AP first responder and an ambulance for transport. And I believe even a regular Paramedic could have handled this call as there were no complications (Of course we cannot know if there will be complications but even so AP was more than enough and if needed other responders could be dispatched quickly enough upon APs judgement)
2- Car went flying into a construction ditch aside M25 just south of sandy, only access path is via dirt road that takes a minute to drive on via max speed of 40 MPH, and then there is the narrow walk path for half a minute at maximum speed of 20 (with off-road vehicle) and then the ditch that is difficult for even 4x4 dirt track vehicles to traverse (realistically) 5-10 meters where vehicle came to a stop in. Initial Units dispatched by Control: HART, LW(FRU), CW, NC(Ambo). First units to arrive on scene after several minutes; LW, CW. FRU secures the vehicle and takes the patient out carefully after figuring that there were no risks and no spinal injuries, asking where LAS was. HART informed that they were on M25 4 miles-ish out. At that point I decided to ask the control to dispatch me due to the situation (and me being a rural response paramedic). I was 1 mile out and arrived the scene in a few minutes. Checked the map for a good place where the Ambulance could be on standby for taking over the patient at and informed them of the position. Then I started initial treatment meanwhile the HART arrived with their polaris and asked what to do. At that point even the FRU told HART that as there was a rural vehicle that was a better option for carrying patients and the terrain wasn't bad enough to justify polaris and told HART to go back to St2. In the end the patient was declared life extinct due to lack of oxygen to brain in connection with too late medical response.
Failure of Dispatching (Units that are known will be required at the scene not being dispatched mostly due to lack of knowledge regarding that Unit/Capabilities.):
3- There was a scene regarding TSG several days ago which I still cannot forget due to how badly it was handled. I do not know what happened at the scene exactly but I know LAS was sent for staging (Excluding any APs). There was at least 4-5 Paramedics (3 Ambulances) , 3 CCPs (2 HEMS Units) dispatched. I do not remember what was done regarding dispatch of a command member from LAS. I just know that when I arrived there were no command units dispatched to the scene that was most likely going to be a big incident with units already staging. After 5-10 minutes the TSG were done and requested LAS to come in. I do not remember the exact number of injured but it was enough to declare an Incident. Few minutes after the green light was given to LAS they realized they don't have anyone to command the scene so they started asking in chat if any Command was available. After few minutes they realized ISC can also declare incidents and I was finally requested. Which then I was deployed as a bike team with another AP so we made st5 together. I was the last unit to arrive to the scene except 1 more HEMS unit asking if we need more units. When I arrived I declared ETHANER after assessing situation and informed control. There was a HEMS member trying to coordinate the scene (Which I am thankful of for trying to get a triage point going before I arrived) and trying to assign me to one of the triage points, until I managed to convince him somehow that HEMS isn't supposed to be the one commanding the scene and he should take care of patients as medically better trained one while I do my job as ISC which I better trained am than him. Started cooperating with TSG command and making progress in the scene. Although there were some problems they were minor and scene was resolved eventually, everyone going back st2 with most casualties being transported to hospital, including use of Helimed.
4- This is probably oldest and least I remember about from here, Another ETHANE scene, which was actually the first incident I had declared. It was a house raid made by AFO if I am not wrong, on the mountain villa. I do not know what happened prior to the raid but I would assume there was staging. When I was called in to the scene there was already HEMS and regular paramedics on scene treating individuals randomly inside the house with no triage. The reported number of casualties was 7. I declared significant incident (due to AP ISC limits) and tried to figure out a way we could solve this problem While other units were trying to assign me to patients and treat injured. I told them that I was trying to figure out a good triage point and they should be treating patients as I was going to be busy trying to manage the scene due to no TL being available. I declared ETHANER and a few more units made way to the location and even Ops1 came with mobile control center. In the end it was too late for most patients due to paramedics running around the house trying to find patients scattered around in need of help. Later Ops1 declared a METHANER. There was not enough place for triage and only Death Mat could be placed outside which filled very quickly. I will admit a part of this could have been my lack of experience at ISC due to it being my first but I believe ISC arriving at the staging phase would help a lot with planning and preparation and might have prevented some of the deaths.
These were all the examples. As you might be recollecting that I said I had declared 2 ETHANERs this month. Which both of them are example at failure of dispatching and ISC arriving at an already expected major incident scene AFTER the scene had began and units going around aimlessly to try and figure out what to do. I know that expecting everything to be perfect is wrong, as well as expecting newcomers of HEMS and Control to be doing their job perfectly. Nor expecting regular HEMS and Control members to do their jobs perfectly always. That is why my suggestion goes to NHS/LAS Division and not Control or College. But to the what we can realistically do.
In my opinion there are several options which of course I cannot claim that are perfect, but I believe are superior to expecting everything to go fine after just kindly notifying people that they should take into more consideration who they request or dispatch. I know that some of these suggestions might not be reasonable, realistic or otherwise preferable. I will give all of them here, with main priority being AP freedom due to APs at the moment being too limited by the other units that are favoured over AP. And it coming to the point of APs and their tasks being forgotten or never known at all. I had HEMS be shocked after they learned AP could do Scene Command (with proper training). I cannot believe it came to the point of us needing awareness for APs. Of course command members and veterans will most likely know all about this, but we aren't trying to have the APs be a special task force that only deploys once every week in friday patrols when Veterans/Command is active.
As the policies/regulations as they are we are not supposed to be requesting to be dispatched, but we hardly get dispatched in time to actually crucial scenes if we do not request it. And yes I have tried asking control via chat for dispatching instead of using radio as well. They are mostly too busy to respond to dispatch requests from chat. It usually comes to units on scene requesting AP or Control dispatching AP due to no other LAS available or call asking specifically for AP unless the Control is a veteran.
Anyways here are some suggestions I very much suggest that are implemented to fix the problems we are currently facing and possibly fix the problems that can arise from implementing the other suggestions below :
1.1 or 1.2
1.1- Emergency Assessment and Rapid Response Training;
A training for APs that can be done after all other trainings for AP are done and 24 hours AP deployment time requirement to ensure that they are serious about it. This training will teach them in what situations they are permitted to self dispatch and respond to calls as well as how to properly self dispatch. After this training they are permitted to self dispatch within the criteria. The requirements are so that we are sure they will be a needed asset for incidents and self dispatch might be crucial.
1.2- Changing regulations for AP trainings:
Making so that AP trainings allow an AP to self dispatch to incidents that the training is related to, examples being: Expected Big Incident ISC, Rural Call Rural unit, Cardiac Arrest for Cardiac Arrest leadership...
2- Advanced Paramedic Self Dispatch Report form:
To prevent abuse of the self dispatch this time, Advanced Paramedics will Have to put in a self dispatch form describing why a self dispatch was required in that situation and how he can justify it AFTER the scene every time they self dispatch. Command will check them to ensure there are no unnecessary/over-self dispatching. I believe people would be less likely to try and abuse self dispatch after they are requested to fill forms per dispatch. Even if it won't totally remove abuse of it, it could drastically reduce it.
Here are some suggestions that might be useful but not as crucial as above for the problems we face at the moment.
1- Specialist units deployment criteria:
Specialist units such as HEMS and HART can only be dispatched after certain criteria is met. As they are precious resources that are skilled in their arts, they must not be dispatched to every random call that goes through. before dispatching them every option must be ticked off. Such as dispatching HART to a person that injured their leg after tripping during jogging on the mountain. That is something with AP capability. And similar for HEMS, dispatching for Police Involved Shootings, they are also mostly within AP capability even if not, APs have the means of protecting life until HEMS arrives after it is deemed that they'd be needed. This can be thought like in Failed to Stops for MET, the Control will first ask for more RTPC units. We can think of it like AP. But if there is no available they will ask for TPAC units, which AFOs can be dispatched to FTSs in that way, similar for HEMS and HART. I know it might not be the best outcome for members of these divisions so I have not put it into crucial suggestions part. It can also be done so that these units can be requested after AP assessment of the situation as a bypass for criteria.
I had several more in mind + more things to talk about but I started forgetting. I think I have been writing this for more than 3 hours now and it has become midnight. I might add more under this message later. I will leave it at this for today due to my mental processing power being left half of what I started with. I just want to say that I don't blame anyone for the problems stated above because they started occurring after a chain of events that when merged together created this situation; Removal of Self Dispatch, Intake of HEMS and Intake of Control. Many HEMS active, deploying even more than LAS and as better paramedics they are naturally favoured by those that do not think over options too much. New Controllers that don't have enough experience yet and are basically regular units with basic control training which would lead them to favour HEMS like others. And as AP cannot self dispatch their hands are tied. All of these had their own parts in the problems, which could be tolerated on their own but when they came together, it becomes difficult to do proper AP duties.
Last edited:
