If I come to you and you tell me you've got 10/10 back pain but haven't taken any pain relief – I'm sorry, I might screw my face up.
This is no longer a job for life I am exhausted. When I first joined the ambulance service as a paramedic, 14 years ago, my colleagues and I used to be able to do a job then decompress with a cup of tea. We would talk to one another and – very occasionally – get back to base for a short rest before the next job. I was inspired to join as my uncle had been in the ambulance service for 30+ years. And like him, I expected it to be my lifetime career – but it may not go that way for me.
Moreover, we are attending more social care and mental health jobs than ever due to chronic under-funding in these areas. Paramedics have no powers of removal under the mental capacity act – we can’t section, we can’t do anything – yet we are still expected to coax sometimes violent or abusive patients onto an ambulance and bump them off to an already overloaded A&E. That’s not the answer.
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