Ambulance staff and end-of-life hospital admissions: A qualitative interview study.

BACKGROUND: Hospital admissions for end-of-life patients, particularly those who die shortly after being admitted, are recognised to be an international policy problem. How patients come to be transferred to hospital for care, and the central role of decisions made by ambulance staff in facilitating transfer, are under-explored. AIM: To understand the role of ambulance staff in the admission to hospital of patients close to the end of life. DESIGN: Qualitative interviews, using particular patient cases as a basis for discussion, analysed thematically. PARTICIPANTS/SETTING: Ambulance staff ( n = 6) and other healthcare staff (total staff n = 30), involved in the transfer of patients (the case-patients) aged more than 65 years to a large English hospital who died within 3 days of admission with either cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or dementia. RESULTS: Ambulance interviewees were broadly positive about enabling people to die at home, provided they could be sure that they would not benefit from treatment available in hospital. Barriers for non-conveyance included difficulties arranging care particularly out-of-hours, limited available patient information and service emphasis on emergency care. CONCLUSION: Ambulance interviewees fulfilled an important role in the admission of end-of-life patients to hospital, frequently having to decide whether to leave a patient at home or to instigate transfer to hospital. Their difficulty in facilitating non-hospital care at the end of life challenges the negative view of near end-of-life hospital admissions as failures. Hospital provision was sought for dying patients in need of care which was inaccessible in the community

Unplanned, urgent and emergency care: what are the roles that EMS plays in providing for older people with dementia? An integrative review of policy, professional recommendations and evidence.

OBJECTIVE: To synthesise the existing literature on the roles that emergency medical services (EMS) play in unplanned, urgent and emergency care for older people with dementia (OPWD), to define these roles, understand the strength of current research and to identify where the focus of future research should lie. DESIGN: An integrative review of the synthesised reports, briefings, professional recommendations and evidence. English-language articles were included if they made any reference to the role of EMS in the urgent or emergency care of OPWD. Preparatory scoping and qualitative work with frontline ambulance and primary care staff and carers of OPWD informed our review question and subsequent synthesis. RESULTS: Seventeen literature sources were included. Over half were from the grey literature. There was no research that directly addressed the review question. There was evidence in reports, briefings and professional recommendations of EMS addressing some of the issues they face in caring for OPWD. Three roles of EMS could be drawn out of the literature: emergency transport, assess and manage and a 'last resort' or safety net role. CONCLUSIONS: The use of EMS by OPWD is not well understood, although the literature reviewed demonstrated a concern for this group and awareness that services are not optimum. Research in dementia care should consider the role that EMS plays, particularly if considering crises, urgent care responses and transitions between care settings. EMS research into new ways of working, training or extended paramedical roles should consider specific needs and challenges of responding to people with dementia.The research was funded / supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from BMJ Group at http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2014-20394

How do people with dementia use the ambulance service? A retrospective study in England: The HOMEWARD project

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2018. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. Objectives An increasing number of older people are calling ambulances and presenting to accident and emergency departments. The presence of comorbidities and dementia can make managing these patients more challenging and hospital admission more likely, resulting in poorer outcomes for patients. However, we do not know how many of these patients are conveyed to hospital by ambulance. This study aims to determine: how often ambulances are called to older people; how often comorbidities including dementia are recorded; the reason for the call; provisional diagnosis; the amount of time ambulance clinicians spend on scene; the frequency with which these patients are transported to hospital. Methods We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study of ambulance patient care records (PCRs) from calls to patients aged 65 years and over. Data were collected from two ambulance services in England during 24 or 48 hours periods in January 2017 and July 2017. The records were examined by two researchers using a standard template and the data were extracted from 3037 PCRs using a coding structure. Results Results were reported as percentages and means with 95% CIs. Dementia was recorded in 421 (13.9%) of PCRs. Patients with dementia were significantly less likely to be conveyed to hospital following an emergency call than those without dementia. The call cycle times were similar for patients regardless of whether or not they had dementia. Calls to people with dementia were more likely to be due to injury following a fall. In the overall sample, one or more comorbidities were reported on the PCR in over 80% of cases. Conclusion Rates of hospital conveyance for older people may be related to comorbidities, frailty and complex needs, rather than dementia. Further research is needed to understand the way in which ambulance clinicians make conveyance decisions at scene

A qualitative study on conveyance decision-making during emergency call outs to people with dementia: The HOMEWARD project

BackgroundParamedics are increasingly required to make complex decisions as to whether they should convey a patient to hospital or manage their condition at the scene. Dementia can be a significant barrier to the assessment process. However, to our knowledge no research has specifically examined the process of decision-making by paramedics in relation to people with dementia. This qualitative study was designed to investigate the factors influencing the decision-making process during Emergency Medical Services (EMS) calls to older people with dementia who did not require immediate clinical treatment. MethodsThis qualitative study used a combination of observation, interview and document analysis to investigate the factors influencing the decision-making process during EMS calls to older people with dementia. A researcher worked alongside paramedics in the capacity of observer and recruited eligible patients to participate in case studies. Data were collected from observation notes of decision-making during the incident, patient care records and post incident interviews with participants, and analysed thematically.FindingsFour main themes emerged from the data concerning the way that paramedics make conveyance decisions when called to people with dementia: 1) Physical condition; the key factor influencing paramedics’ decision-making was the physical condition of the patient. 2) Cognitive capacity; most of the participants preferred not to remove patients with a diagnosis of dementia from surroundings familiar to them, unless they deemed it absolutely essential. 3) Patient circumstances; this included the patient’s medical history and the support available to them. 4) Professional influences; participants also drew on other perspectives, such as advice from colleagues or information from the patient’s GP, to inform their decision-making.ConclusionThe preference for avoiding unnecessary conveyance for patients with dementia, combined with difficulties in obtaining an accurate patient medical history and assessment, mean that decision-making can be particularly problematic for paramedics. Further research is needed to find reliable ways of assessing patients and accessing information to support conveyance decisions for EMS calls to people with dementia

'Menopause affects us all . . .': menopause transition experiences of female ambulance staff from a UK ambulance service

There is limited research regarding the menopause transition in the emergency services; however, all women will experience this life phase, which can have a significant impact on personal well-being, workplace attendance and performance. The aim of this survey was to explore personal and work impacts of the menopause for all female staff in the ambulance setting. Abstract published with permission

Missed opportunities in ambulance sepsis care?

Background Two-thirds of severe sepsis patients are initially seen in the emergency department, with the majority arriving via ambulance. Since early sepsis recognition, diagnosis and clinical management are considered key for optimal patient outcomes, ambulance clinicians are well placed to have a key role in sepsis care. This study aims to identify key patient, clinician and organisation-derived factors which lead to missed sepsis recognition and delayed access to definitive care in the ambulance setting. Methods The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust declares any missed cases of sepsis as a Serious Incident (SI; NHS England Serious Incident Framework 2015) to support clinician and service learning and prevent reoccurrence. A qualitative thematic review, based on the Yorkshire Contributory Factors Framework, has being conducted using seventeen sepsis-related SI reports generated between March 2014 and March 2016. Results SIs were usually associated with emergency/999 calls resulting in non-conveyance. Breathing/respiratory problems were the most prevalent chief complaint. Perceived contributory factors to these incidences were: ‘Patient-derived’: unwell patients with capacity choosing to remain at home, despite advice to attend hospital; presence of co-morbidities and other medical conditions. ‘Clinician-derived’: inadequate patient assessment and triage; failure to recognise sepsis markers and use screening tools; low index of suspicion for sepsis and rapid patient deterioration; insufficient safety-netting and documentation; communication errors. ‘Organisation-derived’: increasing service demands; mismatch between clinician and vehicle response allocation; lower acuity calls receiving delayed responses at peak demand; variable provision of staff training; lack of clinical practice monitoring; lack of safety culture; promotion of alternative care pathways. Conclusions Errors in pre-hospital sepsis care occur at all service levels. SI reports provide invaluable systems-based analyses of healthcare episodes and offer concise guidance to prevent error reoccurrence and improve future care. The study findings will inform the development of a prospective sepsis risk assessment tool using prospective hazards analysis methodologies. https://emj.bmj.com/content/34/10/e9.3 This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2017-207114.2