EMAS COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT EVENT FOR LEICESTERSHIRE & RUTLAND

 

This morning I take up on invitation to attend a "Community Engagement Event" with the Leicestershire and Rutland Division of the East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS). I'm here today (with the agreement and support of my Personnel Management Group) rather than being at the National Meeting of the Inter Faith Network being held in Birmingham (the first time in four years I've missed attending that).

The venue is The Venue, a multi-purpose community facility in Gwendolen Road that I didn't know existed before today - and very nice it is too. The event has been funded through proceeds from EMAS's recycling scheme, so not a penny has been taken from front line services to pay for this today.

When I arrive and start putting up our banner, I'm told that there's already a Council of Faiths pop up banner inside the main meeting too. I'm initially baffled by this and go in to have a look. I'd forgotten that EMAS had paid for one of the banners when the exhibition was made for display in Highcross during National Inter Faith Week 2009. EMAS had said that they'd be using this banner at their own events and, true to their word, here it was. So I put up the banner I'd brought in the foyer That's it in the photo above, flanked by Mukesh Barot on the left (Equalities Manager at EMAS) and Jagtar Singh (conference facilitator) on the right.

This event provides an opportunity to meet the Interim Chief Executive of EMAS (Prof. Tamar J Thompson OBE) and members of the Management Team for Leicestershire and Rutland; for the Ambulance Service to hear the views of the patients, public and communities they serve; and for us to become more directly involved in discussions about EMAS's current and future service provision.

East Midlands Ambulance Service provides emergency, urgent care and patient transport services for 4.8 million people across the six counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire (including north and North East Lincolnshire), Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland. EMAS is currently in the process of becoming an NHS Foundation Trust. An NHS Foundation Trust is a new form of NHS organisation with greater freedom from government control so that it can better meet the needs of local communities. It remains part of the NHS and is subject to NHS standards, providing care paid for by the taxpayer, to NHS patients. To make this transition successfully, EMAS it has to involve service users and community representatives. People from all walks of life in the area served by EMAS can sign up to become members of its Trust.

This is the first meeting of its kind that EMAS has held, focusing on one of its geographical divisions (in EMAS terms, Leicestershire includes the city of Leicester). It's introduced as having an educational purpose, with the intention of helping save lives by encouraging communities, families and individuals to take better care of their health and well-being. We're asked not to think that it's merely a box-ticking exercise on EMAS's part, but a genuine beginning of working with alongside communities as partners. It follows up EMAS's presence and involvement in the Mela in Leicester at the weekend just gone, where more than 350 people were enrolled as members of EMAS's Trust.

A few facts and figures that we're given about EMAS (Leicestershire and Rutland Division) today:

• Geographical area: 1,000 square miles
• Population served: 984,000
• Ambulance stations: 11
• Staff: 544
• Accident and emergency call demand (2010-11): 91,000

With the current restructuring of service providers, EMAS will shortly be the only genuinely regional health body serving the whole of the East Midlands.

I feel a debt of gratitude and loyalty to EMAS, inasmuch as they contributed to funding my post after the initial grant from central government ran out at the end of March 2008. If it hadn't been for that assistance (paid for helping EMAS organise a summit on issues of religion and belief related to ambulance service provision in August 2008) I don't think my post would have survived beyond that initial stage. The summit was covered in depth in an illustrated article in EMAS's Lifelines magazine which is still accessible online (issue no. 9, Autumn 2008, pp.11-14).

As well as being here as a show of good faith with an organisation (and certain individuals inside that organisation) that helped preserve my post, I've also been asked to be here specifically because of a small number of incidents involving paramedics at local places of worship. More than once in recent months, paramedics have been called to attend places of worship for what is classed as a "Category A8" call ("A" signifying top priority - meaning that there is a perceived immediate risk to life, "8" being the number of minutes within which they must arrive at the scene of the incident) but have then been denied entrance to the premises because they have not removed their shoes or have not taken the time to cover their heads. One such incident also involved people at the place of worship being upset because a female paramedic arrived to treat a male patient. I take the time to speak with members of the EMAS team who have a special interest in these matters and we tentatively agree to meet up soon after this event and discuss in more depth what can be done to avoid such incidents occurring in future.

I also have a friendly and interesting chat with Simon Behan, EMAS's Recruitment Manager, about ways in which to make a career in the Ambulance Service more appealing to young people within the diverse faith communities of Leicester.

Kelly Jussab and Liz Harrison are here with promotional material for the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP) as is Chino Cabon from The Race Equality Centre (TREC). REDP has been involved in helping EMAS develop its Community Engagement Strategy - both through attending focus group meetings around the region and critiquing the strategy as it has developed on paper.

There's a demonstration of how paramedics treat patients suffering cardiac arrest and the opportunity to take a guided tour round an ambulance vehicle. We're also offered a free mini health check today. The queue for that forms to the left of our banner and leaflet display, as you can see in the photo above. That's good news for one attendee, who is discovered to have a dangerously slow pulse and is given what's described as "life saving treatment" right away.

There's a choice of four workshops:

• Performance and response: what happens when you ring 999
• Infection control and vehicle cleanliness: practical demonstration with Q&A
• Engagement: how can EMAS engage/involve you more effectively
• Access: what can the Ambulance Service do to improve access to services and career opportunities?

Guess which one I attended, faithful reader ...

A buffet lunch brings this short, but very useful meeting to an end. We're told that we won't be allowed to leave today until each one of us has designated an ICE number on our mobiles. That's a person who should be contacted In Case of Emergency. Paramedics routinely look for this number on the phone of patients who are unconscious or can't communicate. I do this for mine - and sign up as a member of EMAS's Trust too.