Primary Care Paramedics are available in each Practice.
- Charlie Cambidge & Peter Atkinson – Linden Hall Surgery (Newport)
- Hannah Harper & Peter Atkinson – Wellington Road Surgery (Newport)
- Steve Jones – Shawbirch Medical Centre (Telford)
- Kate Stant – Donnington Medical Practice (Telford)
Traditionally, Paramedics have been most associated with emergency care, however, their skills are equally transferrable to GP patients with acute needs. Paramedic training allows them to quickly, but thoroughly, assess the situation they are presented with and, combined with their clinical judgement and experience, make decisions about care plans.
Acute Services
Our Paramedics offer daily Acute Minor Ailments Service (similar to Advanced Nurse Practitioners and Clinicians) and act as part of an expanding multi-disciplinary team to help manage the acute needs of patients within practice.
Home visits
Our home visits team work closely with the GPs at all practices in our network.
Every morning, the Teams check in with practices to confirm their availability for the day. This means practices know how many visits can be scheduled, helping everyone to make sure the patients with the most urgent need can be prioritised.
Requests come through when a GP has spoken with a housebound patient and an in-person clinical assessment is needed.
It’s essential the teams are agile and can respond quickly. A mobile phone and laptop mean the team stays connected and can access medical records before a visit. A bag stocked with equipment and supplies means they are prepared for all eventualities.
On arrival, our Paramedics introduce themselves and explain that the Doctor has asked them to pay a visit.
In the afternoon our paramedic team further support practices by undertaking home visits on behalf of the Practice across the whole of the PCN geographic area.
Benefits to Patients and GP Practices
One of Primary Care Networks’ key aims is to address health inequalities. For housebound patients, there can be an inequality of access as they can’t get to their GP to be seen or get treatment. Our visits team provide this service, meaning patients are not disadvantaged by their lack of mobility.
The flexible, responsive way our team works across all GP practices means patients get seen quicker than if they had to wait for a Doctor to be available.
For Doctors and practices, it is also efficient, knowing that following a call with a patient, a highly skilled clinician will be able to provide an in-person assessment, ensure the patient’s comfort and arrange treatment, referrals, admission, or other support quickly and thoroughly.
Because of the collaborative and connected way our network teams work with practices, all patient notes, referrals, and all other important health information is shared back to practices, so everyone involved in a patient’s care is aware of what is happening.
The following video from the NHS helps to explain what a Paramedic does: