Consultant Paramedic

I only qualified as a Paramedic in 2013 so came into it somewhat later in life after having relatively short careers in the police and in marketing. I felt that I wanted a job that made a difference to people, to have a career in service and in some way make the world a little better. I’d always been drawn to the paramedics when I was in the police, and so it was a natural transition. Once I became a paramedic I soon realised that I wanted to push myself further and so left the ambulance service, undertook additional training in urgent illness and injuries as well as critical care and worked around the country trying to gain as wide as experience in as many different areas that I could. I was therefore working in sporting events with elite athletes, GP surgeries, police custody suites, UTCs, and universities as well as on the road.

Once I started working in Emergency Medicine I fell in love, and quickly found that this was where I felt at home and started to settle. As a result I then undertook my psychology and ACP training eventually undertaking all the necessary competencies to work in the medicine and ED middle grade rota as well as working at a university leading the clinical skills elements of their ACP MSc programme – through this I was lucky enough to be able to write chapters for a number of advanced practice textbooks. I was then recommended a job as a Consultant ACP for the trust where I am now working, directly with the senior medical staff and corporate executives to oversee systems-wide influence.

I also work with the CoP Diversity Steering Group to try and mitigate the barriers others may have in joining the profession, and work as part of the CoP Peer Support Team supporting members undergoing fitness to practice proceedings. As a trans clinician I offer support and guidance on a national level to different public and private agencies.

I am currently in the beginning of my clinical doctorate, and still trying to source funding to help lessen the financial burden. I’m also working towards more textbooks.

I am responsible at a strategic and leadership level for patient deterioration within my Trust, which includes three separate acute hospitals. I am lucky to have a Critical Care Outreach team of ACPs who I lead and some of my day involves clinical supervision with them, seeing and assessing the most critically unwell and obtunded patients on wards and providing high level expert intervention – we utilise afferent and efferent arms of response (i.e., proactive prediction of patients likely to deteriorate as well as responding to patients who deteriorate and have raised NEWS scores) and so this may involve critical interventions, point of care ultrasound, prescribing of specialist medications, or requesting and interpretations of radiology (e.g., CTs) – we do this fully autonomously and independently, working to ST4-6 equivalence and my teams tend to manage around 92% of all emergency calls to patients without requiring any additional senior medical support (these patients typically are taken to ICU).

I will also check in with my Sepsis team – a team of Sepsis Practitioners who will check sepsis compliance, suggest antibiotics based on culture growth, and assist in cardiac arrests from a sepsis perspective.

Then I will check in with my team of Resuscitation Practitioners who are responsible for the training and delivery of all RCUK courses such as ALS and ePALS. We have also recently started training in RCEM level 1 PoCUS courses and have plans for ATLS/ATNC courses. My Resuscitation Practitioners comprise mainly paramedics and ODPs and are responsible for attending cardiac arrest calls, providing expert leadership in crew resource management, but also being a calm point of call and allowing for debriefs afterwards. They will also analyse trends for us to ensure that correct, timely and cogent education is provided to the wider staff, and have specialised skills in human factors.

In between this my weeks are usually filled with meetings, discussion with the other divisional leaders, and usually trying to find additional funding to help develop my team!

The best bit of my job is working with an incredibly dedicated and wonderful group of staff and being in a position to be able to develop them and make their place of work enjoyable. Underpinning all we do is patient care and while I enjoy the adrenaline rush of being able to manage patients independently (together with the appropriate governance and support in place to allow that) I see the core aspects of my job as bringing my teams together and giving them all the opportunity to flourish and be their full selves. The NHS historically has had difficulties in relation to working conditions and wellbeing so my primary aim is to challenge that.

I have a great group of friends with whom I connect regularly and confide in.