Teesdale community paramedics build bridges between emergency and primary care in rural communities
Across our region, teams of paramedics work within our communities providing out-of-hospital care for thousands of patients and supporting the wider healthcare system across the North East.
Recently, we followed one of our Teesdale community paramedics, Richard York, for a shift out in the community to see what a day on-shift looks like for him and his colleagues.
Throughout the shift, Richard visits several elderly and vulnerable patients who benefit from the familiarity of care at home, including 97-year-old Bill who is a World War Two Royal Navy veteran and a regular on Richard’s lists of patients. For the elderly and end-of-life-care patients that he visits regularly, Richard provides a lifeline of support and, importantly, a friendly and familiar face. Speaking to Bill in his home, we asked what impact Richard’s care had on him: “I look forward to seeing [the community paramedics] and we’ve become friends. I can tell Richie everything, he takes very good care of me. I’ve obviously been to hospital, but I want to stay at home.”
The interconnectivity of working with GP practices allows Richard and his colleagues to have a real influence on the long-term care of their patients. Richard said: “A lot of the time our patients underestimate what’s wrong with them, but they don’t want to be a bother and they are frightened to go to hospital. I’m able to do something to support that.
“When you’ve got the ambulance service working on one hand and doctors working on the other, it can sometimes feel like we’re working against each other despite us all having the patients’ best interests at heart. With this way of working, we work together as one team. As well as being better for the patient, ensuring we’re meeting their needs, it’s also better for the system because we’re utilising our resources more effectively and ultimately reducing demand on the ambulance service and emergency departments.
“Yes, we do sometimes still have differences of opinion, but we have a much better understanding of each other’s expertise and how we can work together to support our patients. It’s a really nice and supportive environment to work in, and I even get invited to Christmas dinner!”
For Old Forge Surgery doctor and partner, Dr Chris Marwick, the relationship is equally as beneficial to him and his practice colleagues. He said: “We cover quite a large geographical area and many of our patients are incredibly rural. Having the community paramedics to go and see patients frees us up to see more patients in the practice and helps our patients get a really good continuity of care as the paramedics really get to know our community.
“If I have a patient who is borderline being admitted into hospital, the team can visit them and keep an eye on them, ensuring they receive the care they need and hopefully preventing an unnecessary hospital admission.”
North East Ambulance Service works closely with primary care providers and system partners across the region, supporting the delivery of GP and urgent care services in and out of hours. As well as community paramedics, we employ first contact practitioners and specialist and advanced practitioners, covering all aspects of integrated urgent care, from telephone consultations to urgent treatment centres and home visits.
One of our key ambitions as a service is to be a good system partner. If you have an idea about working with us which you would like to discuss with our team, please email publicrelations@neas.nhs.uk