The present trend is for the ambulance services to be more part of the NHS
and less one of the emergency services. The recent ASA document on the
future of ambulance services
[ http://www.ambex.co.uk/pdf/fas_report.pdf ] is clearly in favour of this.
This seems sensible as although some dispatch functions are similar to the
emergency services, the important part of their job is healthcare.
Paramedics rotating thorough A&E and other areas would seem to be one way
forward- anyone any experience of this?
Matthew Cooke
----- Original Message -----
From: "Danny McGeehan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 05 September 2001 00:31
Subject: Re: Third Watch
Colleagues
recently visiting New York and saw the film crew in Central Park filming
"Third Watch" very good show and apparently written by same authors as ER.
Managed to watch it on NBC last week and unfortunately not shown in the UK.
The two cops who were filming were very good and let me take a picture with
my 15 yr old son. They were Skip Sudduth and Coby Bell, really charming men
and pleasure to meet and made our trip to New York a pleasure..
However the reason for the posting is that I was amazed to see that the girl
who plays the paramedic, Kim Raven was wearing the uniform of the NYFD and I
presume that she was employed by the fire service in the plot. One of the
crew told me this was the case in New York. In the UK our paramedics are
employed by seperate Health Trusts. As our health service seems to follow
the US obviously there was a policy to change the position of the US
paramedics to work for the Fire Dept. I suspect that the UK may well follow
this policy. Does anyone out there have any info on this?
BTW I hope they do show "Third Watch" in the UK it is produced by Warner
Bros and a high quality show.
Danny McGeehan FRCS FFAEM
Staffordshire
UK
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