Covid research found that wearing personal protective equipment delayed the treatment of dying patients
Dying patients experienced crucial delays in treatment by paramedics due to the time it took for ambulance crews to don protective personal equipment, the Covid inquiry has found.
An ambulance technician, Mark Tilley, was close to tears on Tuesday as he described how the experience was still “playing on his mind”.
Paramedics were told they could not put on personal protective equipment before arriving on scene and would have to wait before putting on plastic Tyvek suits and protective hoods or masks.
Tilley told the inquiry that the delays could cost crews crucial minutes before they could begin treatment. “In the really most serious cases, we could actually have been at the patient’s side a minute and a half faster,” he said.
“If I showed up at people’s homes where someone was unfortunately dead through the front window or just on the path to their property… normally I would have gone over and started bouncing up and down on their chest (to perform CPR) ), but we went and put on our masks and suits, and all that – that plays on my mind all the time.”
Tilley, an ambulance technician with the South East Coast Ambulance Service who gave evidence as a representative of the GMB union, also described how inadequate personal protective equipment led him to make his own.
Aprons were so poorly made and in such short supply, he said, that “we seriously considered using garbage bags and literally cutting a hole in them so they wouldn’t explode in your face” when we were outside.
In addition to the thin aprons, the protective gloves were also outdated, “very cheap and dirty,” and tore and tore easily. Face masks were routinely kept in the ambulance refrigerator, Tilley said.
He told the inquiry: “We were expected to use that and trust our lives, and then obviously go home to our loved ones, knowing that 24 hours, 36 hours later we might have symptoms because the PPE had not worked. installed correctly and not current.
“Until we started purchasing the hoods, there was no way to actually be properly protected.
“I exposed (my family) to elements of risk that I could have avoided, and that is something I live with, but I would go home from work and have to undress in the hallway so I wouldn’t get in to go. my uniform to try to protect them. That’s on my mind.”
Alice Hands, counsel to the inquiry, said research carried out for the inquiry had revealed similar stories, with other ambulance crews saying they were “forced not to intervene… and watch people die” while donning equipment.
But Anthony Marsh, NHS England’s national ambulance adviser and former chairman of the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, told the inquiry that while he was aware of these concerns at the time and had discussed the issue with senior colleagues, giving ambulance staff the opportunity to on personal protective equipment while traveling to calls to reduce response times “would not have been safe”.