A TRIAL which sees advanced nurse practitioners working with paramedics in the control room at West Midlands Ambulance Service is bringing real benefits to patients and staff.
The programme that is being run by the emergency care intensive support team from NHS Improvement, has seen advanced nurse practitioners from Royal Wolverhampton Trust working with the emergency clinical co-ordination paramedics at WMAS’s Strategic Capacity Cell.
Strategic operations cell commander, Martyn Pugh, said: “We have already seen a significant number of patients diverted away from being taken to A&E by ambulance due to the work of the paramedics in the strategic capacity cell.
“These paramedics work with the crews on the ambulance to find alternative ways to provide additional treatment to patients rather than have them taken to A&E.
“This could be by referring them to other healthcare staff such as district nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and access to social care support.
“What this new programme brings is the chance for the paramedics at the scene to talk to the advanced nurse practitioners who have specialisms in community health care.”
At this stage the pilot programme is only being used on the Wolverhampton area, but once feedback from the project has been analysed, it is hoped it could be introduced more widely.
