Learning from serious incidents: importance of sitreps

The Trust is keen to share learning from serious incidents (SIs) to recognise how and why something has gone wrong. It is not about attributing blame or internally admonishing our staff; it is about our commitment to improving the care we give to patients in the future.

An SI was declared last year following a paramedic’s decision to allow an emergency care assistant (ECA) to convey an elderly patient who had fallen to hospital alone, whilst the paramedic attended an RTC they came across on the way to hospital. A crew was already in attendance at the RTC.

The EOC had not been made aware the second crew stopped at the RTC and were only told of the plan once this decision had been made.

Please remember the importance of giving sitreps to EOC at your earliest opportunity, as best practice.

This is so that EOC can resource an incident appropriately, inform the critical care desk if assistance is required, and keep an up-to-date picture of what is happening at scene to keep you and your patient safe.

If you would like to know more about serious incidents, how the Trust declares them and what happens next, please visit East24.

Published 17th January 2015