alan murray steps down page 2 doctors tribute page 5 our heroes page 7insight page 9

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n e w s l e t t e r f o r t h e W e l s h A m b u l a n c e S e r v i c e s N H S Tr u s t

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If you have any comments or ideas about the magazine or suggestions about how it can improve than please contact a member of the editorial team.This is your magazine and if you are reading it and thinking that it doesn’t address issues that you feel are important, then it is down to you to contact your regional representative and tell them about it. Any stories or ideas are also welcomed so please contribute and make this your magazine.

contentsPages 2 and 3: Levi in no mood to wait | Alan Murray steps downPage 4:Doctor’s tribute Page 5:Volunteer’s thanks Pages 6 and 7:Our heroesPages 8:Help for Les | Pad at pit | Disaster simulationPages 9 and 10:Insight

siren Alan Murray steps down

the comms team

Acting Communications Manager Richard Timothy.

01495 76540407515 191347

Communications Officer Adam Johnson

01745 53299607824 499379

Alan Murray, the Chief Executive of the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, stepped down at the end of March.

Mr Murray said: “During the past three and a half years, we have been able to implement wide-ranging changes, leading to significant progress in improving our performance.

“Nurses are triaging less serious 999 calls and resolving almost three quarters of them on the phone.

“The first-ever university educated paramedics will graduate in August. Our first specialist practitioners are now operational, seeing and treating many more people in their own homes, keeping them out of hospital.

“While strong foundations have been laid for the future, a lot of hard work remains to be done.

“I am proud of what our staff have achieved, but I believe that I have taken the Trust as far as I can.

“It is a high profile, high pressure job and I believe the time has now come to pass the baton to someone new.

“I want to thank everybody who works for the Welsh Ambulance Service, staff and volunteers for their hard work and dedication. They fully deserve the confidence and admiration of the people of Wales.”

Stuart Fletcher, the Chairman of the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, said: “I would like to thank Alan for his important contribution during a crucial period in the history of the Welsh Ambulance Service.

“Our performance has improved considerably since he took the reins in 2006.

“He is the main architect of our comprehensive modernisation programme, Time to Make a Difference, which has provided us with an excellent strategy to improve the service.

“There is still some way to go but we are now in a stronger position as we enter the next stages of the modernisation programme. I would like to wish Alan all the best in the future.

“We will conduct a careful search to find a successor who can take the Welsh Ambulance Service forward to the next level in terms of our progress and create an organisation of which Wales can be proud.”

In the meantime, Elwyn Price-Morris, the Director of the North Wales regional office of the Assembly Government’s Health Department is acting as Interim Chief Executive while the Board conducts a search for a permanent Chief Executive.

A young mum has visited the North Wales Air Ambulance base to say a personal thank you after a dramatic mercy mission by helicopter paramedics helped save the life of her premature baby.

When Cloe Green, 21, went into labour at home it was still a month early but little Levi wasn’t in the mood to wait.

Cloe’s sister Amy leapt into action to deliver the baby at the house in Dyffryn Ardudwy, Harlech, even before the 999 call went through but the air ambulance helicopter was there within minutes as tiny Levi fought for life.

Welsh Ambulance Service paramedics Ian Binnington, from Wrexham, and Martin Lisin, from Holywell, took over and gave the 5lb 8oz baby oxygen and helped get him breathing properly.

Ian, paramedic team leader for the Air Ambulance, said: “He was blue and although he was breathing he needed attention urgently so we oxygenated him and once he had ‘pinked’ up we got him on board and flew him to Ysbyty Gwynedd.

“We had had a cardiac call to Harlech so we were in the area and able to get there quickly.

“We don’t usually do maternity cases because it would be very tricky delivering a baby in a helicopter - it

air ambulance to the rescue of baby levi

would look a bit odd on the birth certificate too – but here the baby was already out.

“This was on the old helicopter which didn’t have as much space as the new one we’ve now got but this was an emergency so we got the OK.

“The midwife had also arrived so we managed to get her, Cloe and the little boy on board but we had to leave Martin behind.

“We were so pleased that it was a good outcome and it’s great to see Cloe and Levi looking so well.”

Cloe and Amy, along with their children, including little Levi, visited the North Wales Air Ambulance base at Dinas Dinlle, near Caernarfon, to thank the crew for their swift actions.

Cloe said: “Everyone did a fantastic job, especially Amy, and I’m just so grateful to the air ambulance for getting us to hospital so quickly and helping Levi come through.”

Cloe Green with son Leo and Air Ambulance paramedic Ian Binnington with baby Levi.

A grateful couple from Barry have paid tribute to the Welsh Ambulance Service call-taker who talked them through a home birth in the early hours of the morning.

On-line delivery number four for Rachel

It was a stressful event for Amanda Kingsley and Alan Carter as baby Tia put in an early appearance but all in a night’s work for call-taker Rachel Spracklen.

Rachel, 26, from Abertillery, who only joined the staff of the Ambulance Service’s South East Region control room in January 2009, has now helped four babies – all girls – into the world.

The most recent came in Barry and Rachel said: “It was Amanda’s third child but it was his first so I just talked him through the procedure and it went well.

“I think he had thought he was going to be sitting on the sofa waiting for the ambulance to arrive, not getting hands on.

“He made me laugh because he asked me if I delivered a baby every night but some people who trained at the same time haven’t done any – it’s just how it goes.”

Amanda said: “Rachel call-taker was brilliant – and the ambulance crew were great, so helpful and nice.”

The crew of paramedic Paul Crowley, from Cardiff, and technician Ed O’Brien, from Porthcawl, let the new dad cut the cord and Paul said: “It’s always good to have a good outcome like this and it’s great to have someone appreciate what you do as well.”

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A retired doctor has paid tribute to the Welsh Ambulance Service crew she says saved her life after she suffered a horrific injury on a remote hillside in appalling winter weather.

Dr Anne Watson was walking on a rough track when she slipped and fell in torrential rain, breaking her thigh and badly damaging her knee.

Twelve months later, after recovering not just from her injuries but also from cancer, she returned to Wales to meet her saviours, paramedic Jon Coile and technician Gareth Morris.

Anne and her husband, Christopher, from Oxford, had been staying at the 300-year-old cottage near Llangenny in the Brecon Beacons, where they have been holidaying for 40 years.

doctor’s tribute to her ambulance heroesThe 70-year-old former GP realised

instantly the seriousness of her injuries and used her mobile to dial 999: “It was in November and we had just locked up the cottage and I slipped on wet grass and it was as if my knee and femur just crumbled – it was agony.

“I couldn’t move and I could see that my femur was in the wrong place and my leg was skewed round.

“The ambulance car had trouble getting to me because of the roads but when they did they were marvellous. I think without them I would have died because my husband would have tried to get me into our car.

“The ambulance crew were wonderful. It was so cold I could hear

their teeth chattering and their hands were shaking as they treated me.

“I got hypothermia but they did the best they could to keep me warm, trying to cover me in that silver paper even though I was lying on this track in the pouring rain with water gushing past me.

“They had to pull my leg straight and that did hurt but they were tremendous and did a great job in very difficult circumstances.

“They’re a wonderful gang and they really did save my life.”

Anne was taken by ambulance to Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny before being transferred to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital where she underwent a nine-hour operation to

reset her thigh.Since then she has also fought

cancer but she returned to Crickhowell to meet up again with the ambulance crew and Jon, 32, from Nant y Glo, said: “It was wonderful to see her again. It was a rotten day when she got hurt but she was quite feisty and her spirits were good and she was an excellent patient, very brave.

“It’s a tribute to her that she’s making such a good recovery and although it was difficult for us it was much worse for her.”

His colleague, Gareth, 35, from Brynmawr, added: “She’s a marvellous lady and it was good to see her in such good form and back in Wales.”

My saviours: Dr Anne Watson with Welsh Ambulance Service paramedic Jon Cole, left, and technician Gareth Morris.

A volunteer ambulance car driver has paid an emotional tribute to four Patient Care Service staff who pulled him back from the brink after he suffered a heart attack outside Wrexham Maelor Hospital.

Gareth Jones paid a visit to the Ambulance Liaison Office at the hospital to be reunited with Wrexham PCS colleagues Dave Hanson, David Beard, Ken Vickers and Brian Wright.

The four received an ambulance service regional team award for their part in saving Gareth’s life when he collapsed in the hospital grounds.

David Beard explained: “I saw Gareth walking towards us and the next minute he was on the floor, I got to him

When Wendy Rowe helped save the life of a man who had collapsed in church she didn’t realise he would turn out to be a long-lost cousin.

The 46-year-old mum only found out later that heart attack victim Mark Davies was related to her.

She and fellow church member Marian Roberts were with Mark at a meeting at the Spiritualist Church in Swansea’s Oxford Road when he slumped into his chair.

Wendy, helped by Marian, gave Mark CPR – cardio-pulmonary resuscitation – and then assisted Welsh Ambulance Service paramedic Alan Richards as he shocked him back to life four times.

Alan nominated the two women for a Welsh Ambulance Service award presented to them by Central and West Regional Director Richard Lee and he said: “If it hadn’t been for them I don’t think we would have had a success.”

Alan, 52, arrived at Swansea Spiritualist Church in a Rapid Response Vehicle and found Wendy and Marian treating Mr Davies: “They were giving him very good CPR,” he said: “He didn’t have a pulse but they carried on with chest compressions and between the three of us we managed to defib him

and put him in the recovery position.”David went to raise the alarm with

the nearest ambulance crew while Dave, Ken and Brian carried out CPR on Gareth. They administered oxygen until EMS arrived to take him to A&E.

Dave Hanson added: “Gareth came round after the first set of compressions we did and then we got him in the ambulance. It just shows the value of having basic life saving skills.”

Gareth, who underwent a heart bypass and hopes to return to volunteer driving, said: “I really want to thank them all... they’ve given me my life back. I will never forget their kindness and the day they saved my life.”

four times.“We eventually got a very strong

heartbeat and excellent respiratory effort and an ambulance crew were soon there to take him to hospital.”

Alan, from Llangennech, near Llanelli, who has been in the ambulance service in Swansea for 27 years, added: “What made the difference was that these ladies were able to provide good CPR almost immediately for the patient and I told them, ‘I don’t know if you realise exactly what you’ve done but this man would never have had a chance but for you.”

Wendy, of Mayhill, Swansea, a mum of three who works as a one-on-one special needs assistant, said: “I went on a first aid course with school last year but I didn’t expect that I would have to use it in this sort of situation.

“I’ve since found out that Mark and I are cousins and after he had been in hospital he came and stayed with us for a week to recuperate and now he’s looking really well.”

Mark, 42, said: “I am sure that without Wendy and Marian and Alan I wouldn’t be here today. I’m very grateful and I’ve even found a relative I never knew I had.”

volunteer’s thanks to lifesaving quartet

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our heroes : f rom the f ront l ine to the back room

A journalist with one of Wales’s top newspapers has paid tribute to the Welsh Ambulance Service crew who attended him after he was the victim of a vicious street attack.

As Health Correspondent of the South Wales Echo, Greg Tindle has often written about the Welsh Ambulance Service, but the respected reporter had first hand experience of the service when he walking to work one morning in the city centre.

Greg was punched in the face in a totally unprovoked attack and staggered to the newspaper office nearby where an ambulance was called with the crew of paramedic Christine Bigmore and technician Rob Tyler arriving within minutes.

He said: “I would just like to offer my heartfelt thanks to the two ambulance staff who attended. Both offered the most fantastic comfort and kindness.

“I’ve always had the greatest admiration for the work of the ambulance service and these two confirmed my belief - I will never forget them.”

Greg, 59, was reunited with the crew at Blackweir Ambulance Station and Christine said: “It’s not a time of day when you would expect to get belted but it does happen.

“He had some bruising and swelling round his eye and, as you’d expect, he was suffering from shock.”

Greg added: They were really wonderful. They checked me over and treated me and they even took me home because I didn’t need to go to hospital.

“It’s been brilliant being able to meet up with them again and thank them properly.”

Welsh Ambulance Service data analyst Kayleigh Malson knows laughter really is the best medicine – and she can prove it.

Kayleigh returned from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after a rib-tickling 80-minute sketch show that kept her audience in stitches.

As part of the Abergavenny Spotlight Society (ASS), the 23-year old played to near full houses for three nights.

“We did a sketch show that was 80 minutes long. It was a bit like the Fast Show,” said Kayleigh, from Abersychan near Torfaen: “One minute it’s a doctor’s surgery, the next a game show. I played everything from a doctor to a bar tender.”

Kayleigh, who works at Vantage Point House, the control room for the South East Region, admitted comedy acting can be nerve-wracking.

“If you don’t make them laugh it can be terrible but we had a really good reception when we were in Edinburgh.

Kayleigh took to the stage four years ago for something to keep her busy after analysing ambulance service data all day.

“A former colleague had joined the Abergavenny Theatre Group and I became interested from there. It was just something to do rather than being bored in the evenings. I hadn’t done drama at school.

“Then a group of us thought we’d like to bring comedy to the Valley as the nearest place to see it is Cardiff.

“I was very nervous at first and I still get nervous although it’s worse in the build up. When I get on stage I’m fine.

“I’d really love the opportunity to do a big theatre performance,” she said. “But that would mean having to give up the day job and I won’t be doing that just yet.”

fringe benefits

Communities in one of the poorest regions of Africa now have trained volunteer lifesavers thanks to the efforts of a party of Welsh Ambulance Service staff from South Wales.

The nine-strong party of paramedics and ambulance technicians from the Service’s South East region spent two weeks in Mbale, in Uganda, training and equipping local health workers.

They were there as part of the links formed by the Pontypridd-based charity PONT (Partnerships Overseas Networking Trust).

During their stay they trained 60 local volunteers in life-saving skills and provided them with four defibrillators – electric shock machines – worth £6,000 and provided by Heartstart UK in a sponsorship deal arranged by one of the party, First Responder Officer for South East region Tony Rossetti, from Bridgend.

It was a dream come true for Paramedic supervisor Julien Newton and

making a difference in uganda

An ambulance call allocator from Llandudno Junction is putting her new found Welsh language skills to the test after a week’s intensive tuition.

Eirwen Roberts won the chance to spend a week at the highly-rated Nant Gwrtheyrn Language Centre in a Welsh Ambulance Service staff competition.

Mum of two Eirwen, 46, who works in the control room at North Wales Regional Headquarters in Llanfairfechan is now able to answer callers in Welsh.

She said: “I was delighted to win the competition and it went really well at Nant Gwrtheyrn and was great fun.

“So many people do speak Welsh, both the people who call in and my colleagues that I wanted to be able to speak it as well.

“I needed more confidence and to increase my vocabulary and now I’m back at work I’ve got to keep it up but I’m sure my friends in work will help me.”

Eirwen won her place at Nant Gwrtheyrn in the competition by saying in less than 100 words why she felt learning the language would be useful to her and for one of her reasons she said: “We receive emergency calls from members of the public who are often in a state of panic and who would feel far more reassured if they were speaking to a Welsh speaker.”

Welsh Language Officer Sharon Jones said the response from staff was excellent and added: “The Trust is committed to delivering a bilingual service and Welsh speakers within the Trust are encouraged to support colleagues who are learning Welsh”

Anyone with enquiries about the Trust’s Welsh Language Scheme or about learning Welsh, can access information on the Trust intranet or contact Sharon at Headquarters on 01745 532900 or by e-mailing Sharon.l.jones@ambulance.wales.nhs.uk

eirwen answers the call for wales

ambulance technician Andrew Pipien, from Hawthorn Ambulance Station in the Rhondda, who set the ball rolling for the project when they visited Mbale last year.

They returned this November with Tony and six colleagues, paramedics Jonathan Good, Steph Roberts, Geraint Tucker and Giovanni Riva and technicians Stacey Carter and Mandy George.

The group paid all their own expenses, about £1,000 each, and used their own holidays for the trip, and Julian said: “It all went very well and we trained 60 people with Tony Rossetti and Stef Roberts in charge and the rest of us helping out.

“We also managed to source three ambulance s and we hope to have them on the road in 12 months time with trained ambulance drivers.

“They’re not what we would necessarily recognize as ambulances but they do

the job there and we are also looking at them using ambulance motorbikes and even bicycles which can pull a stretcher.

“The idea is that the people we have trained can now go back to their communities and pass these skills on – the keenness and enthusiasm of the people to learn and the welcome they gave us was quite humbling.”

Eventually they hope that over 2,200 Operational Level Health Workers and Community Health Promoters will be in place and their efforts have been recognised by the Welsh Ambulance Service in an official partnership with PONT and representatives from Mbale.

Julian and Andrew are keen to hear from other members of the Welsh Ambulance Service who would like to get involved with the work they are doing in Uganda.

They can be contacted by e-mail on julian.newton@talktalk.net and andrewpip@hotmail.co.uk

Mission of mercy: from left, Mandy George, Andrew Pipien, Geraint Tucker, Julian Newton, Steff Roberts, Jonathan Good, Stacey Carter and Tony Rossetti.

news tribute

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iNSiGHTAn emergency 999 operator has

been given an international award after talking a mother through the birth of her child when she suddenly went into labour alone.

Welsh Ambulance Service dispatcher Teresa Ross was named The Academy of International Dispatch’s Emergency Medical Dispatcher of the Year.

Sarah Lewis, from Caerau, Cardiff, was coaxed through the birth of her

son Jacob by Teresa after she went into labour while her husband James, 28, was at work.

Sarah said Teresa’s calming voice had “meant everything” to her as she delivered Jacob on her living room floor less than five minutes into the call.

She said: “Teresa was amazing. Basically, she was my birthing partner instead of my husband. It felt like she was in the room with me.

“I didn’t need, ‘oh, poor you’, I needed, ‘don’t worry, you can do this’, and that’s what she gave me.”

Teresa, 39, from Pontypool, who has since talked another woman through a similar birth, admitted she had been nervous when talking Sarah through her birth but said she felt honoured.

She said: “I was privileged to be involved with something like that – to be the first person, along with Sarah, to hear her baby take his first cry and first breath.”

award for calming voicePlans are being made to extend the

ground-breaking Paramedics on Bikes scheme that operates in Cardiff City Centre at weekends.

An appeal for more paramedics on two wheels has gone out from the Welsh Ambulance Service’s South East Region.

The new recruits are needed to join the successful scheme which currently operates in the pedestrianised area of the city.

There a dedicated team of three paramedics, all experienced cyclists, have swapped their ambulances and Rapid Response Vehicles for mountain bikes – and they’ve seen response times tumble.

On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm a paramedic on a bike patrols the city’s pedestrian precincts and shopping arcades – now even busier with the opening of the giant St David’s 2 complex.

It has been running for two years and Team Leader and organiser Simon Morgan, a paramedic from Merthyr and the man who devised the scheme, said: “It has proved very effective in reaching patients quickly.

“Often the bike-riding paramedic will get to the patient while the 999 caller is still on the phone.”

Simon and team colleagues Kevin Dyer and Lawrence Evans, both Cardiff-based, are all keen cyclists

and they use a specialist mountain bike – fully equipped with a range of life-saving equipment including a mini defibrillator, a resuscitation kit and cardiac arrest, therapeutic and respiratory drugs, as well as first aid equipment.

Anyone interested in joining the scheme can contact Simon Morgan at Merthyr Ambulance Station.

A ground-breaking scheme to put a new breed of paramedics on the roads is being pioneered in the UK by the Welsh Ambulance Service.

It will see a network of highly-skilled, highly-trained and equipped Specialist Practitioners distributed across Wales ready not just to respond to emergencies but also to make decisions about aftercare.

A first cohort of entrants have been chosen from the ranks of the Service’s paramedics and nurses and they will undergo specialised training to graduate and postgraduate level to equip them to provide a level of care above and beyond the existing service.

It is the first such scheme in the UK and the Service’s Consultant Paramedic Andrew Jenkins said: “We’re going to have a new kind of paramedic out there, an ambulance clinician, not just providing immediate emergency care but also making decisions about the sort of continuing care the patient

paramedics on bikes

specialist paramedics

A gas explosion at a busy South Wales shopping centre saw the Welsh Ambulance Service deal with 83 casualties in a major operation which lasted more than five hours.

But as this was a training exercise held near Neath every casualty walked away unhurt while the emergency services learned some valuable lessons.

Alongside the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust, the major training exercise involved South Wales Police, both South Wales and Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Services, Neath

83 casualties in major gas explosion – training exercise simulates disasterPort Talbot Council, The British Red Cross, Air Fire and The Welsh Urban Search and Rescue Team (USAR).

Patrick Rees, the Welsh Ambulance Service’s Central and West Emergency Planning Officer said casualty actors were provided by Young Fire Fighters, student paramedics and the British Red Cross and were made up to add realism to the exercise.

He added: “To ensure all agencies are ready for such emergencies regular exercises to test and practice the response are held. The live major incident exercise was held at the Welsh

Urban Search and Rescue Training facility at Earlswood, Jersey Marine, near Neath.

“While there was an agreed scenario, an aim, objectives and timelines, each agency was free to practice elements of their response, to ensure everyone gained the maximum benefit.”

The Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, working in partnership with Swansea University, was able to involve 40 Higher Education Institution Student Paramedics, giving them an insight into how the emergency services respond to a major incident.

A retired engineer brought back from the dead five times has been reunited with the Welsh Ambulance Service volunteers who helped save his life – after being alerted by text.

When fitness fanatic Les Stevenson, 66, collapsed with a massive heart attack First Responders Malcolm East and Dan Murphy from the Welsh Assembly Government offices in Llandrindod Wells were there within minutes with an ambulance crew close behind.

Malcolm said: “We received a text message from control and were on our way.

“Les wasn’t breathing so Dan started giving him CPR while I attached the defibrillator. It said to shock him so I did and at that moment the crew arrived and between us we just kept working on him and they shocked him three more times.”

The crew of Colin Stroud and Martin Scott continued treatment, followed by paramedic Chris Morgan, who said: “The First Responders shocked him early and through that we had the success then the crew followed up and between them they did a superb job.”

A grateful Les, of Maelog Court, Llandrindod Wells, said: “They saved my life. If they hadn’t been there so quickly I wouldn’t be here – there’s no two ways about it.”

volunteers help save les

One of Wales’s top heritage sites, the iconic Big Pit at Blaenafon, in Torfaen, has become the first museum in the country to have a brand new defibrillator on site.

Thanks to a ground-breaking partnership between the Welsh Assembly Government and the Welsh Ambulance Service this vital piece of life-saving equipment has now been installed in the Pithead Baths at the National Coal Museum.

The defibrillator has been provided by WAG while Ambulance Service trainers have taught staff how to use it and how to give CPR under the Public Access Defibrillator programme.

It means that a site that that represents what once was one of the most dangerous places in Britain to work is now one of the safest to visit.

Ex-miner Paul Green, now Senior Deputy at the Museum, said: “It’s absolutely cracking. We hope we never have to use it, but it’s there just in case and we’re very proud to be the first museum in Wales to have one.”

In its heyday Big Pit employed 1300

pad at pit people and brought coal up from its 300 feet deep shaft but today its staff are all ex-miners or have links to the coal industry and it attracts some 160,000 visitors every year.

The man who brought the defibrillator and trained staff at Big Pit is Gerard Rothwell, PADs Officer for Wales, and he said: “Mining is such a strong part of our heritage and Big Pit is an important reminder of that.

“It attracts so many people that to have a defibrillator there is vital and we’re delighted to be able to work with the Welsh Assembly Government because specialist training in basic life support skills does save lives.

Mine Keeper and Manager Peter Walker and Senior Deputy Paul Green with Gerard Rothwell, Welsh Ambulance Service Public Access Defibrillator Officer

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one, at the point of contact and decide whether he or she needs to go to hospital or if they can be treated at home then that’s better for everybody.

“It’s much better for the patient and it means you haven’t got a seven-ton ambulance tearing around to something that doesn’t need a blue light response.

“Clearly some people do need to go to hospital but huge numbers don’t and you need the educational process to make you competent to do that and to attain a higher level of skills and clinical expertise and that’s what this is all about.”

A Ruthin man has said goodbye to an ambulance service career spanning five decades.

Gwyn Thomas retired after 44 years in the emergency medical service profession and thanks to his commitment to training, many staff on the road now have had the privilege of being ‘Thomas Trained’.

Gwyn said : “I joined St John’s and at that time, the out of hours service for the ambulance service was run by St John’s and the Red Cross in Ruthin which gave me valuable experience working in the ambulances. Alongside that I also did an apprenticeship in plastering.”

Gwyn joined the Denbighshire Ambulance Service in 1965 in Ruthin and after 10 years was promoted to Leading Ambulanceman and completed a pre-instructor course at Wrenbury Hall, in Cheshire.

Gwyn completed his DHSS Instructor

course in 1980 and worked at Liverpool Regional Ambulance Training School as well as playing a leading role in the introduction of defibrillators in North Wales.

He also helped set up the Clwyd Ambulance Service’s paramedic training and became a Resuscitation Training Officer and tutored on Advanced Paediatric Life Support Courses at Bolton, Liverpool and Oxford after becoming a member of the Faculty of Advanced Life Support at Hope Hospital, Manchester.

Since then Gwyn continued developing training and clinical governance in the ambulance service and finished as National Equipment Manager.

He said: “The biggest highlight in this role has to be the new ambulances and being involved with their design and the equipment carried by the vehicles.”

“What has given me the greatest pleasure is being able to help people learn and see them develop.

“We have got a terrific bunch of people working with us and they are doing their job very well.”

needs.“They will be trained to use a wider

range of medicines to manage particular conditions and will have extended skills to provide consultations and make informed clinical decisions

“They will often be able to treat patients at home, significantly reducing the number of people sent to Accident and Emergency departments and signposting them towards continuing care.

“They will be able to consult and examine patients and devise a treatment plan, offer a range of antibiotic under Patient Group Directions (PGD’s), as well as wound management.”

The Service’s Advanced Care Practitioner, Tim Jones, has also been heavily involved and he added that across the UK up to one million patients a year are taken unnecessarily to A and E departments.

He said: “The new grade of clinician, known as Specialist practitioner - Paramedic/Nurses, will have sufficient training and education to better manage those with serious conditions, such as asthma, and arrange care disposition, often in their own homes.

“But they also have a second role because they are available to be sent to life-threatening emergencies in their area because they have the paramedic skills to deal with those situations.”

One of that new breed will be paramedic Roger John, from Ynysybwl, in the Rhondda, who is currently on the Rapid Response Vehicles in Cardiff.

Roger, 55, who joined the ambulance service in 1991, has been a paramedic for 12 years but also has a B Sc Honours degree in Pre-hospital Care from Swansea University and is in the third year of a Masters degree in Advanced Clinical Practice at the University of Glamorgan.

He said: “The new specialist role will require a greater understanding of how the human body works so as to treat the patient in the most appropriate way, at their home if possible.

“I was attracted to the role because I saw it as a natural progression from what I have been doing in developing myself as a paramedic.

“Vast numbers of patients go into A and E and out the other side without being treated and that ties up resources.

“This is where the specialist practitioner role comes into its own because it releases those resources and at the same time takes healthcare to the patient rather than bringing the patient to the healthcare.

“If you can assess a patient, one to

gwyn retires

Ready to roll: Welsh Ambulance Service new Special Practitioners with the Service’s Consultant Paramedic Andrew Jenkins, centre, from left, Paul Burrows, Cardiff; Jonathan Parker, Newport; Roger John, Cardiff; and Andy Davies, Cardiff.