Who would want to be an Ambulance Medic, Wiltshire and around the UK

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, just seen this on the news, Swindon court and you would think this lady would go to prison, 🤔 a suspended sentence 🤔, ??, Absolute disgrace 🙄, this man had life changing injuries 🤔 , these court officials must live on another planet🤔

Edited February 15, 2023 by oldypigeonpopper

[welsh1]

https://www.wiltshire999s.co.uk/swindon-woman-prison-attack-paramedics/

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Absolutely lousy sentencing, what were the jury thinking?

[holloway]

33 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Absolutely lousy sentencing, what were the jury thinking?

Not the jury the judge ,I would like to put him or her on the end of that punch it’s no wonder they keep offending no consequences at all .

[TIGHTCHOKE]

1 minute ago, holloway said:

Not the jury the judge ,I would like to put him or her on the end of that punch it’s no wonder they keep offending no consequences at all .

But the jury's findings must have led to the Judges Sentencing, surely?

[holloway]

10 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

But the jury's findings must have led to the Judges Sentencing, surely?

Well the jury found her guilty yes …..but the sentence isn’t handed out by them it’s the judge I think who sets the sentence, I may be wrong ,someone who knows for sure will be along soon .

[TIGHTCHOKE]

5 minutes ago, holloway said:

Well the jury found her guilty yes …..but the sentence isn’t handed out by them it’s the judge I think who sets the sentence, I may be wrong ,someone who knows for sure will be along soon .

Yes I know but the jury lead the judge, if they voted other than guilty the judge would be limited in their sentence.

 

I strongly suspect and hope that someone may well challenge the sentence to get it increased.

[holloway]

She pleaded guilty herself so the sentence was probably softer ,whatever way they came to the sentencing it was a joke .

[TIGHTCHOKE]

2 minutes ago, holloway said:

She pleaded guilty herself so the sentence was probably softer ,whatever way they came to the sentencing it was a joke .

Yes we can agree on that.  

[12gauge82]

1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

But the jury's findings must have led to the Judges Sentencing, surely?

The jury's job is to find guilty or innocent, the judge decides the sentence. Although in exceptional cases a jury could ask for leniency, in the vast amount of cases, it would fall solely to the judge to hand out a sentence in line with sentencing guidelines. So nothing to do with the jury. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

3 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, just seen this on the news, Swindon court and you would think this lady would go to prison, 🤔 a suspended sentence 🤔, ??, Absolute disgrace 🙄, this man had life changing injuries 🤔 , these court officials must live on another planet🤔

Suspended sentence for 2 years, Words fail me 🤔

1 minute ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Suspended sentence for 2 years, Words fail me 🤔

What kind of deterrent does that give out , what a loony judge 🙄

Edited February 15, 2023 by oldypigeonpopper

[ratchers]

1 hour ago, holloway said:

She pleaded guilty herself so the sentence was probably softer ,whatever way they came to the sentencing it was a joke .

Surely if she pleaded guilty, theres no reason for a jury?

Sentence basically lets her off scot free, what was the judge thinking, did he/she not see the video.

[Yer man]

Magistrates court, as I understand it. Therefore no jury. 

[Bigbob]

We have lost the war for this country this shows the judges are out of touch with there sentencing

And the government cant sort  real problems 

 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

17 hours ago, ratchers said:

Surely if she pleaded guilty, theres no reason for a jury?

Sentence basically lets her off scot free, what was the judge thinking, did he/she not see the video.

Noted.

17 hours ago, Yer man said:

Magistrates court, as I understand it. Therefore no jury. 

Noted.

[old man]

Don't worry Australia may solve this problem with a set of packages to lure away all of our medics. Any with sense should maybe desert the sinking ship?

Seemingly now the aggressor is thought more of than the victim by judge and CPS? No dubt had they have attempted to defend themselves arrest would have been speedy?

Edited February 16, 2023 by old man

[Scully]

A mate of mine became a male nurse and works ( if he still does ) in A&E somewhere in Bristol. 
He was a 2nd Dan in Judo back then and told me he had employed his training many a time at work to subdue idiots, and defend both himself and work colleagues. 
Perhaps it’s time ambulance staff were issued pepper spray or similar.

It’s outrageous that those we expect to undertake emergency work with the general public are expected to do so with no means with which to defend themselves. 

[bruno22rf]

She woud have received a more harsh sentance if she threw an Egg at Charles, bitch needs to be put away.

[Remimax]

every day you see **** like this for a slap on the wrist ,boils my ****.

 

[Lloyd90]

14 hours ago, Scully said:

A mate of mine became a male nurse and works ( if he still does ) in A&E somewhere in Bristol. 
He was a 2nd Dan in Judo back then and told me he had employed his training many a time at work to subdue idiots, and defend both himself and work colleagues. 
Perhaps it’s time ambulance staff were issued pepper spray or similar.

It’s outrageous that those we expect to undertake emergency work with the general public are expected to do so with no means with which to defend themselves. 

The big issue is that she began threatening them, but because they have a “duty of care” they stayed to make sure she was alright. 
 

The moment she got aggressive towards them they should have picked up their stuff and left. 
 

They should have left her without treatment and if she died then that’s her own fault. 
 

The problem is they are so afraid to do that they stay, despite being in obvious risk and then end up with situations like this. 
 

For the record I am not “victim blaming” the paramedics, I am saying they need a sharp change in the legislation and system to protect them to take the right decision on n situations like this.

 

We have similar with Police who attend “suicidal people” … who go to places and phone the Police to “don’t come and stop me” … then phone the Police to ensure they have the right location and ask why they’re taking so long. 
 

When the Police arrive they can’t leave the person despite them being an obvious time waster (normally people who do this every single night) and take them to Hospital, having to sit with them all night. 
 

 

[Westley]

They were lucky that the job ever made Court, most don't  !

[Scully]

On 17/02/2023 at 08:28, Lloyd90 said:

The big issue is that she began threatening them, but because they have a “duty of care” they stayed to make sure she was alright. 
 

The moment she got aggressive towards them they should have picked up their stuff and left. 
 

They should have left her without treatment and if she died then that’s her own fault. 
 

The problem is they are so afraid to do that they stay, despite being in obvious risk and then end up with situations like this. 
 

For the record I am not “victim blaming” the paramedics, I am saying they need a sharp change in the legislation and system to protect them to take the right decision on n situations like this.

 

We have similar with Police who attend “suicidal people” … who go to places and phone the Police to “don’t come and stop me” … then phone the Police to ensure they have the right location and ask why they’re taking so long. 
 

When the Police arrive they can’t leave the person despite them being an obvious time waster (normally people who do this every single night) and take them to Hospital, having to sit with them all night. 
 

 

I quite agree. They need the ability to just turn their back and go where they are genuinely needed, without the fear of litigation. 
We really have allowed ourselves to get into one helluva mess regarding this insidious culture of litigation and the stifling fear of its consequences. 

[12gauge82]

While I'm certainly not blaming the paramedics for their actions (there's only one person to blame and that's the vile creature throwing punches). But it amazes me that people don't legally defend themselves, the law is very clear that you don't have to wait to be assaulted before you can use reasonable force to defend yourself.

Whether they were scared of getting in trouble themselves, or it's fear of dealing with violence itself I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't have stood there and let someone smack me. 

[old man]

1 hour ago, 12gauge82 said:

While I'm certainly not blaming the paramedics for their actions (there's only one person to blame and that's the vile creature throwing punches). But it amazes me that people don't legally defend themselves, the law is very clear that you don't have to wait to be assaulted before you can use reasonable force to defend yourself.

Whether they were scared of getting in trouble themselves, or it's fear of dealing with violence itself I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't have stood there and let someone smack me. 

Maybe the difficulty lies in the fact that if you do attempt to defend, that arrest will follow while the situation is sorted out?

[7daysinaweek]

7 hours ago, Scully said:

I quite agree. They need the ability to just turn their back and go where they are genuinely needed, without the fear of litigation. 
We really have allowed ourselves to get into one helluva mess regarding this insidious culture of litigation and the stifling fear of its consequences. 

I do agree with you Scully and the litigation budget is over 2 billion the last time I looked. As there are plenty of genuine litigation cases, many others are successful in gaining compensation as the law is hugely skewed on the duty of care to the provider and not the individual as you point out.

I am in no way exagerating that on a daily basis in work I see or directly deal with some form of aggression from patients and sometimes relatives, thankfully less rarely violence, though it does happen. In the last couple of years I will give you a handful of incidents that I have been involved with. A colleaguge getting spat in their face, a heavily pregnant colleage getting punched in the stomach, another having a metal drip stand smashed across their face, non of these resulted in a serious prosecution and all claimed mental health issues as the reason for the violence. These were not patients in a mental health unit or learning difficulties unit but people within our daily society that were deemed to have capacity at the time. As far as I am aware these individuals can still access any emergency aed in the country.

I work for a large trust and there are hundreds of incidents of violence and aggression each year and I suspect many incidents go unreported.

Only yesterday evening I was swore at twice by two different patients. Daily, I see frustration from patients and this is nothing new, sometimes this is a result in a lack of communication which is regrettable or a longer wait and this is only to be expected when delivering a patient facing public service dealing with society. What is glaringly more evident since covid to myself and all my colleagues, and I know many from a wide range of services is that there is more violence and agression towards all staff than there ever was before. This includes hospital staff, paramedics, police and fireman as we get to see many of them for different reasons.

Frusration I accept this as daily occurence from a patient facing service and the pressure of waits, and it is to be expected to an extent. Aggression and violence is another matter. It is generally accepted that once an individual enters a healtcare setting by appointment or self presentation aed etc and books in that to a larger extent that a duty of care is owed.

For example a patient enters a aed department books in and is triaged, is there a duty of care to maintain the safety of that person whilst they are in the department, in most circumstances there is.

A person wanders into the ground of a hospital and breaks into a back corriodor into a non public area of the hospital and is injured or found dead, was there a duty of care, probably not.

Under the mental capacity act all people are deemed to have capacity until proven otherwise.

If someone becomes agitated the carer, practioner or medic is asked wherever to undertake a dynamic risk assessment of the situation which can be difficult at times. We are told that despite the assumption that an individual may not have capacity and they begin to exhibit aggression or violence that as a care giver your safety should always be paramount and you do have the legal right to withdraw from the patient to a safe distance and inform the police. Obviously this is taken on  a casa by case risk assessment, 85 year old frail Martha with a UTI who has become acutely confused and aggressive may be owed a greater duty of care as from the Steve who has booked in with cut to the hand and is systemically well and has become agressive because he does not want to wait any longer. 

To legally discharge your duty of care you are required to act within the 'relevant standard of care', this is generally evaluated as the standard expected of the practioners profession performing that role or task and a failure to discharge that duty could be regarded as negligence.

The nhs says it has a zero tolrenace for agression and viloence, in my personal experience this isn't always the case. Myself and my colleagues have been held to account for refusing to treat individuals that have capacity and have continued to display agrressive threatening behaviour for a deemed risk to ourselves and others. This has come off the back of a complaint from the individual via a solicitor, stating that a duty of care was failed and the individual has gone on to have experience or developed harm or mental ill health issues. I haver known cases to be paid out despite that agression being well documented and the reason of refusal of care. It would make you cry if you could hear of some of the things that go on are beyond disbelief.

The nhs does not always not have a great track record for supporting it's staff in some situations and it is not unfounded that many nurses, doctors and health care professionals feel to be made that they were at fault and this has been widely documented in the public domain. If an individual is assaulted whilst in work in the nhs it is 'the responsibility of the individual' to press for a criminal charge and nhs trust policy is to 'support' them in this.

I have known patients who have every comorbidity under the sun who have chronic alcoholism, diabetes, vascular disease, respiratrory disease who smoke 40 roll ups a day and drink 10 tins a day who go on to develop a presure ulcer who are predominantly mobile and because it was not documented by a nurse visit to home within 24 hours, the patient then goes on to be successful in claiming for negligence and harm despite the patient having capacity. Madness!

Plenty of trusts move to paying out as they simply do not have the resources from risk governance legal department to thoroughly build a case against litigation.

There is increasingly no accountability owed by the individual towards their own health need despite imparted insights and education on when they should seek attention,  accountability is more and more skewed towards the provider in my opinion.

I have read a few of Lloyd90 posts and he speaks on many of these points also. 

Some health boards have a 3 strikes system where if the individual is repeatedly aggresive or violent they can be removed from the gp surgery, the gp has to legally inform the ccg in writing and the reason for doing so. That said, the law deems that a duty of care is still owing, so the individual should not be discouraged from access to health services that would be expected at a service level agreement for all nhs patients. This means they are afforded to be registered with a gp who accepts a patient who has been removed from another surgery for this reason. This individual is free to attend walk in centres, urgent treatment centres and aeds at there own free choice.

In some exceptional circumstances we have had individuals excluded from an emergency unit for attending for certain conditions, however these have a standard operating procedure pathway to be referred back to a primary care practitioner, however if they roll up and are acutely unwell or injured, a duty of care is still owing and are required to be seen and a dynamic risk assessment is again to be undertaken. 😣

A patient note in my experience is added to the record or scr that the patient is known to violent so to give staff a warning that they are known to exhibit violence. I have been told that legally the patient has to be informed that a note will be added to the medical records and generally to be seen in two's with another menber of staff when presenting.

The people you read about in the paper or the person you see on the street who exhibit these toxic behaviours often come into a healthcare setting and their behaviour does not always change. Some see it as an entiltlement to create 'hell' at times and feel if they start kicking up a stink that they will jump the que and be seen quicker, when they are asked to calm down they become more agressive, see it all too often.

Get every walk of life in and across our trust as a whole we are dealing with more and more stabbings, it has become a serious agender for our governance department, more worrying for us who are dealing with more and more mental health and patients directly on the front line like the paramedics in the thread. I feel for the paramedics as it is they that are most often exposed to the threat without any back up or support.

Many paramedics tell me that a common theme appears to be told that when they start there training that they are told they be lucky if they last 5 years due to the burnout from agression among other pressures.

I worked in primary care out of hours for nearly two decades carrying out home visits from four in the afternoon until midnight on my own, covering the most deprived areas of Merseyside. I could write a book on the situations I have had to deal with and the things I have seen. 

One of the scariest thing I ever had happen to me was having an axe thrown at me, but that is a story for another time.

We get plenty of undesirables in, had someone stabbed in the face multiple times on the doorstep once as I was going in, nasty stuff! I got told off for going under the crime scene tape a bit later on. But I was in charge and having to navigate the post chaos in the unit, scary for my colleagues also and the other patients. It happened as one person was leaving they bumped into the other person coming in and got stabbed, a few seconds more and both of them would have been fully in the reception. Despite patients being stood outside the assailent was apparently not perturbed by the other patients stood outside and the comings and goings of staff and set upon the other with the knife.

 That is worrrying for us as it happened on the work doorstep.

Plenty of genuine people with mental health, physical conditions, alcohol related conditiosn, social issues and comorbidities and I am more than happy to see and support. Some people in our society are clearly unhinged and the worrying thing is that violent behaviour appears to becoming more of an acceptable behaviour for our goverment in society.

I feel for them poor paramedics, that must have been terryfying for them. And once agin the individual gets off lightly with no deterrent to society.

Some crazy ******* out there.

                    boogers

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by 7daysinaweek