I work for the ambulance service, ask me anything!

Labour or Conservatives?

That’s amazing! I didn’t know all of this was done by the ambulance crew as well. 👍🏽 Wow!

Labour have a policy I hugely disagree with, but I hate the Conservatives more. So neither are exactly my ideal party, but out of the two I'd pick Labour.


Ambulances aren't just for taking people to hospital. That used to be what they did; you can watch Call The Midwife (which is TV so not always accurate) and all the ambulances do is come and pick people up. But now we do treat and leave people at home if possible, or can refer people to other services such as the GP if appropriate.

I am interested in Holby City and Casualty. I didn’t think of the ambulance crew checking the vehicle and cleaning the ambulance once leaving the patient at the hospital etc.

Do you feel that your paid fairly? What is your opinion on Brexit affecting the NHS? What do you think of the NHS’s future?

Labour have a policy I hugely disagree with

Which one?

If you watch Casualty, they show the ambulance crews as having downtime to play basketball. That doesn't happen.

In my service, we do have a vehicle prep team that is supposed to check all of the kit is on the ambulance and in date/clean/correct etc. But to them it's just a list of things to check and they don't fully understand the importance. So things do sometimes get missed or put in the wrong place. That;s why we check ourselves. We know that if headblocks are missing then we can improvise but if some other things are missing it could be a disaster.

With cleaning, we do a basic clean after every patient. If the patient is known to have something contagious, or if they vomited etc then we'd do a deeper clean, which can include mopping out the vehicle. If they're seriously contagious or have things like bed bugs then the vehicle will be taken off the road for a specialist deep clean.

I think the world has got pay structures wrong. It's crazy that footballers (well, any sports star or popstar etc) get paid so much and yet people who save lives get so much less. But I also think that carers and teachers and nursery staff should get more. I think there are huge problems in the care sector where care staff are undervalued when they do hugely necessary jobs, and HCAs and sometimes even nursing staff get that too.

I think Brexit affecting the NHS depends on the terms negiotiated. The NHS does have a huge number of foreign staff, although they're not just European but worldwide. So if Bexit is going to make visas difficult or similar then I think it's going to be awful. I don't even think we could adopt a position of attracting skilled staff (like Australia have skilled migration) because a lot of the jobs are things like carers and cleaners which wouldn't be seen as skilled but are necessary.

I think the problem with the NHS is that things are different now and those things are much more expensive. As I already said, years ago when people called an ambulance they'd get 2 people, a van and a stretcher. Now, they get 2 people, a £150,000 ambulance and all the kit. Most people who go to hospital will get blood tests as standard, and may then get an MRI or an X-Ray or a CT etc. So all the treatment is so much more expensive.
Add to that the fact that people are surviving things they wouldn't have survived years ago (like heart attacks, or even just increased life expectancy with some conditions) and you've got a larger population, with extensive co-morbidities that are now requiring more expensive treatment. And that's going to cost a lot more money. Some reports say things like "population has increased by x% so we need x% more spending) but that's ignoring the rising costs of treatment. This increase isn't just in the emergency departments and ambulance service. Part of the problem with A&E waiting times is that some patients are ready to be moved on (to a ward, or a care home) but there's nowhere to go. There are a lot of elderly/disabled people who have a care package in place, but then acquire further injury/illness that means they need a hospital stay, and when they're ready to leav hospital that existing care pacakage is no longer suitable.

So I think that's a long winded way of saying that I think the NHS is in trouble and needs huge reforms.

I agree that the world has got their pay structures incorrect.

Interesting to counter in more expensive treatments and life expectancy. They’re really good points. How many hours do you work a week and do you think you can pay off your degree? (You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to).

I work 37.5 hours per week. But it doesn't work out like that every week as we do 8, 10 or 12 hour shifts mainly. So this week I'm working 4 10 hour shifts, and last week I had 7 days off. Overall it averages out at the correct amount.

I don't have a degree in paramedic science (I'm not a paramedic). I do have a degree, but it's not under the new fee structure so I didn't have to pay £9000 a year tuition fees. So I'm fairly confident I will pay it off, since it was only around £8000 at its highest.
I think if I did a degree now then it's highly unlikely I'd pay it off if I took the maximum loan.

Ah okay. Fair enough. Can you choose your shifts or are you limited by when your “managers” put you on?

Oh okay, £8000 that’s still a lot. How much interest did you pay or are paying?

I was read some stories before, some of ambulance driver are faced paranormal activity when they drive with death body. Do you faced this types of things in your life?

How would I become an ambulance technician? What training courses would I need to do?

@BlueLightDriver
I'm planning to apply to medical school this year (as a graduate) and was considering ambulance technician/emergency care assistant as a gap year job (great experience for medicine + money + sounds like a very interesting job). However, given the training length, do you think it's worth it? I'm applying this year for 2019 entry so would start medical school in ~September 2019. Of course, this is assuming I get an offer this cycle. Would it be frowned upon given the fact that I may only be around for about a year? Do you think I should look at something else instead?

Thank you for the reply! It seems like this isn't going to be an option after all unfortunately I've looked into being a 999 call handler but ideally I need hands on experience so I don't think it would count. Could you tell me more about the non-emergency ambulance job? I've read a little bit about it already. Would it be a more feasible job to get and work for for a year? Or is the training just as long?

Thank you so much for you information!!

I actually passed my driving test in 2014 (I'm 22) so that should hopefully be ok?

They both sound very interesting. Naturally the one which involves me learning clinical skills is more attractive though. Thank you for clearing up, I always thought that anything with emergency etc. was another way to describe an ambulance technician!

Do you know how often there are vacancies for these roles? Because I haven't found that many London based ones on the NHS jobs website and even fewer on the Trac website. Would you say that any adverts which appear on the Indeed.co.uk site are legit? Because I've found loads on there.

the ambulance is at my house right now. dad had chest pain and lost consciousness

Have you ever had someone come in because they where
bit in the face by a lion?

Have you ever had someone come in because they where
bit in the face by a tiger?