Alton Coach Crash - Monday 18th August 2008

At 17:56 on 18^th August 2008, West Midlands Ambulance Service mobilised North Staffordshire BASICS scheme to attend a road traffic collision on Station Road in Alton, Staffordshire. Dr Mark Nash, Dr Ben Clark and Dr Latif Hussain, the three doctors within the scheme, all attended. 

A single decker coach containing approximately 60 people was in collision with a car and came off the road just as it approached a bridge over a local river. Having gone through the bridge wall, the coach rolled on its side and slid down the embankment approximately 30 foot, where it came to rest in the garden of a nearby house.

Along with the West Midlands Ambulance Service, local first responders, the Fire and Rescue and the Police, the three doctors worked to triage and treat those injured. One patient unfortunately died at scene, whilst another suffered serious head and arm injuries and required an anaesthetic from the team prior to being escorted by Dr Clark about a helicopter from the County Air Ambulance, to the trauma centre at The University Hospital of North Staffordshire, in Stoke-on-Trent. A further patient was flown by helicopter to Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham with head injuries. 

16 other patients were taken to nearby hospitals including Burton, Stafford and the University Hospital of North Staffordshire. Approximately 44 other passengers were assessed and treated for minor injuries at the medical centre within the nearby Alton Towers.

M6 Road Traffic Accident - Saturday 7th June 2008

At 05:49 on the 7 th June 2008 North Staffordshire BASICS was mobilised by West Midlands Ambulance Service to attend a road traffic collision on the M6 in Staffordshire. Dr Mark Nash, a Consultant Anaesthetist at The University Hospital of North Staffordshire, responded for the scheme.

A vehicle carrying 2 males (both next door neighbours) and their 4 sons, was travelling Southbound from Manchester when their car was hit from behind by another vehicle. The front car was sent spinning and ended up at the bottom of a step embankment just South of Keele Motorway services between junctions 16 and 15.

On arrival of the emergency services, the car was almost unrecognisable from the extent of the structural damage. One man and his sons had managed to escape (with minimal injury) but unfortunately, the remaining family had suffered extensive injuries. One boy had died instantly whilst the other younger one suffered life threatening head injuries. Having been extricated, Dr Nash administered an anaesthetic in an attempt to stabilise his condition and then rapidly transferred him by ambulance to the trauma unit at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire. Unfortunately the boy died of his injuries a few hours later. The man was also transferred to hospital where he remains in a serious condition with spinal and chest injuries.

Manchester Riots - Wednesday 14th May 2008

When a large TV screen set up in Manchester City Centre for the benefit of Glasgow fans at the UEFA Cup Final broke down last night riots broke out that caused widespread damage to property and numerous casualties. One police officer at the scene commented “The Manchester bomb didn’t do this much damage”. The statement might not have been quite accurate but the enormous amount of debris underfoot allowed his words to be taken without great objection.

When the Police declared a Major Incident the North West Ambulance Service also alerted all the doctors in BASICS North West and seven doctors in all responded to the City centre, to be sent in to the area under Police escort to support the work being undertaken by the local Paramedic crews with support from Merseyside and Lancashire colleagues. Injuries ranged from assaults between fans, a road accident, and fans who had come into contact with the riot teams working to restore order. Gradually as fans calmed down, alcohol began to wear off and fatigue set in more and more fans set about finding somewhere to sleep for the night, and the area became quiet, leaving the businesses in the city centre to clear up the damage.

The medical team was disbanded shortly before 2am to catch a few hours sleep before another working day.

DR PETER BASKETT

26th July 1934 – 18th April 2008

It is with the deepest regret we announce the death of Peter Baskett, the Editor-in-Chief of Resuscitation and prominent member of the Board of the European Resuscitation Council. The extensive contribution that Peter has made to medicine in general, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation specifically, will appear in Resuscitation as a special article in the series ‘Resuscitation Greats’.

Peter Baskett starting lecturing and teaching in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) soon after his appointment as Consultant Anaesthetist to the Royal Infirmary and Frenchay Hospital , Bristol , UK in 1966; he has been at the forefront of resuscitation in Europe and elsewhere in the world for 40 years. He was a Founder Member of the Resuscitation Council (UK), which was established formally in 1984. In 1989, Peter was appointed as Chairman of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) and remained a very active Officer and Board Member of this organisation right up to his death. As a member of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) from 1995 to 2000, Peter developed the international guidelines on airway management during resuscitation, and healthcare professionals across the world respected his expertise on this subject. In 1994 Peter published one of the first studies on the use of the laryngeal mask airway for in-hospital resuscitation. In 2005, in recognition of Peter’s contributions to resuscitation the American Heart Association awarded him as a ‘Resuscitation Giant’.

Peter was greatly respected within his principal specialty of anaesthesia; he was a Past President of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI), and served as a member of council of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. Peter was also President of the World Association for Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Chairman of the British Association for Immediate Care (BASICS) from 1982 to 1985, and President of the International Trauma, Anaesthesia, and Critical Care Society (ITACCS). Peter was made an honorary life member of the AAGBI, BASICS, the Resuscitation Council (UK) and the ERC.

Peter Baskett played a leading role in promoting both citizen CPR within the UK community and advanced life support ( ALS ) courses within hospitals throughout Europe . Peter personally introduced the ERC ALS course into more than 20 countries in Europe and the Middle East . Until very recently, he continued to teach, on a voluntary basis, on approximately 25 ERC ALS courses each year. Peter had been Editor-in-Chief of the journal Resuscitation from 1997. Under his leadership the journal grew significantly in quality and status. Peter authored over 170 scientific publications and edited five books on resuscitation and emergency medicine. Along with Douglas Chamberlain, Peter introduced advanced training for ambulance personnel in the UK ; these individuals evolved into what we now know as paramedics. Peter was responsible for introducing premixed nitrous oxide/oxygen (Entonox) as an analgesic for use by ambulance personnel in the UK .

Alongside every great man is a great lady. Vital to Peter’s success was the tremendous and unfaltering support that he received from his wife Fiona. The strength of her support, along with that of Peter’s son Simon and daughters Lucy, Olivia and Beatrice, was demonstrated most overwhelming during his final and prolonged illness.

The name of Peter Baskett is familiar to the resuscitation community worldwide. He accumulated a staggering number of achievements and they impacted significantly on many disciplines. He is a great loss to the ERC.

BBC Inside Out South: Emergency Doctor - 21 March 2008

Most of us think that the NHS employs doctors to rush to major incidents like car pile ups, fires - even train crashes such as that at Ufton Nervet. The truth is that most of the country relies on doctors volunteering their time.
Watching some hospital dramas on TV leads us to imagine that the NHS really does employ emergency doctors to go to victims suffering major trauma.
The truth is, most of the country relies on doctors volunteering their time - like the ones who work for the medical charity BASICS in Hampshire.
Roadside anaesthesia buys precious time. They say lives are being lost because nearly half the time - when you most need doctors at the scene of an accident - they want to come to help you but they can't. That's because, outside London , they are not officially employed to get to victims suffering trauma.
So they may be doing their day job, looking after patients in hospital. It's only when they're not working that they can attend.

Inside Out met two doctors who work for the BASICS charity in Hampshire.
We talked to Cliff Reid whose decision on a Saturday off to answer a 999 call helped save a child's life in extraordinary circumstances.
We also spoke with Phil Hyde, who kept a video diary over a month recording the incidents he attended.

Phil Hyde's experiences
Phil's video diary is hard to watch but tells a very vivid story. In the early hours of New Year's Day Barry Moody fell from a second floor balcony. Barry was bleeding on the brain, had breathing difficulties - and all the ambulances in the area were tied up. Paramedic Peter Thorpe got to him first - to be joined by Dr Phil Hyde. For an hour they worked together to deal with his injuries. Dr Hyde was able to anaesthetize Barry and put him on a breathing machine.
Barry's father Colin used to be a paramedic. He says, "If Phil hadn't been there, I don't think my son would have made it to hospital."
Mr Moody isn't dismissing the work of his former colleagues - nor are the volunteer doctors. Paramedics are a vital part of the emergency chain. But unlike doctors they cannot anaesthetize patients or put them on breathing machines - which buys time to get those patients to the most appropriate hospital rather than the nearest. Barry is now recovering in hospital.
His father says, "Emergency doctors at the scene are a godsend to any ambulance service... as any paramedic worth their salt knows".

Emergency treatment and survival rates
Research indicates that an emergency doctor helping a patient with grave trauma at an accident scene means that patient is twice as likely to survive and recover more quickly and better. Doctors like Phil Hyde want their work to be incorporated into the NHS, so they can be there for 100% of the calls.
The organisation that decides the level of ambulance service for a large part of the  South of England is the Buckinghamshire Primary Care Trust.
Its Finance Director, Linda Morris, acknowledges the contribution of the volunteer doctors but says their major role is to back up to paramedics and is only critical in very rare cases. The Primary Care Trust says it is open to evidence, but that medical resources need to be properly targeted.
The Hampshire team of emergency doctors say they were able to respond to 48 calls in one month alone, and they believe that, in 12 of those, they were able to make a significant difference to their patients.

Recent reports into pre-hospital emergency care are on the emergency doctors' side, but - until now - it is a discussion that has not been fully aired in public.

BASICS - The British Association for Immediate Care welcomes the report
Trauma: Who cares? published on the 21 November 2007 by NCEPOD

The principal recommendations in Trauma: Who cares? BASICS completely endorses but we are saddened but not surprised to note that the same consistent themes are still present in UK trauma care some 19 years after the Royal College of Surgeons of England first reported on the subject and despite several other salient reports in the meantime.

A strong consistent seamless chain of care from point and time of incident to definitive care or surgery still eludes us in the UK for want of organisational change rather than for reasons of clinical ability within the UK Healthcare professions. All too often this lack of change is fossilised by political inertia arising for many reasons as well as the difficulty in getting the NHS colossus to alter course.

The public, patients, politicians, managers and the professions need to understand that better outcomes in major trauma are more likely in units staffed by personnel undertaking sufficient throughput and with all relevant specialties to hand. Of necessity this mandates greater regionalisation of services and patients travelling that little bit further to hospital. BASICS has long recognised and taught in its Pre-Hospital Emergency Care courses that the best out come arises from "The right patient to the right hospital by the right means of transport in the right time frame" and NOT by the patient merely being transported to the nearest hospital. Everything can be lost including the advantages of rapid ambulance service response to the scene by failure to learn from and act upon the lessons in this report and BASICS looks forward to working with others to achieve its aims

Peter Holden
Press Officer BASICS

M1 Coach Crash - Monday 03 September 2007

The South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) declared a major accident in response to the Newport Pagnell Bus Crash on the south bound slip road at Junction 14 on the M1 on the 3rd September 2007.
SCAS received mutual aid from East and West Midlands Ambulance Services.
17 patients were transported to hospital (Northampton General, Milton Keynes and John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford), 6 of whom were seriously injured. 17 patients were treated and discharged from the scene.
7 BASICS Doctors attended the incident to provide Medical Incident Command and Casualty Care. The Ambulance Service was supported by the Chiltern and Thames Valley Air Ambulance, Coventry and Warwickshire Air Ambulance (in a rapid response vehicle), and London's Air Ambulance. The Thames Valley Police Helicopter provided aerial support and remained on stand by for patient transport.

Med-Alert supports Cumbria BASICS at rail crash - 23 February 2007
Mutual aid by BASICS North West

A high-speed nine-car Glasgow-bound Virgin train travelling from London to Scotland derailed at Greyrigg in Cumbria at 8:10 p.m, sending the carriages slipping down an embankment and killing one person and injuring dozens others. BASICS doctors were mobilised from Cumbria , Lancashire and Merseyside to attend the scene.
There were around 80 to 90 passengers on board. Five critically injured were transported in RAF Sea King helicopters to Lancaster Royal Infirmary and the Royal Preston Hospital . Seven others were also taken to hospital with significant injuries. A Royal Lancaster Infirmary spokeswoman confirmed early Saturday that one of the hospital's patients, an elderly lady had died in hospital of injuries sustained in the crash.
Some 65 were walking wounded were taken to a school in Greyrigg and to a hotel where they were examined by BASICS doctors, including Med-ALERT doctor, Pete Williams. In all sixteen doctors responded to the incident from all parts of the surrounding area. The incident was managed by Cumbrian BASICS doctor Theo Weston. The mobile medical team who attended the crash from Lancaster Royal Infirmary were full of praise for the BASICS doctors on scene.

A casualty clearing area was initially established at a nearby farm. One casualty, initially considered to be walking wounded, was identified to be deteriorating, and required a surgical procedure for a collapsed lung.
When the ambulance services amalgamated last year the Immediate Care Schemes recognised that it was necessary to develop a co-ordinated approach for North West Ambulance but today was the first time that the mutual aid of schemes from other Counties had to be called upon.

M25 Coach crash - 3 Januray 2007

BASICS respond to horrific coach crash  
7 Doctors from BASICS Berkshire and BASICS London were called to the scene of a horrific coach crash that occurred at the intersection of the M4 and M25 motorways shortly before midnight on 3 rd January 2007 . The double-decker coach ended up on its side on the slip road between the two motorways. A total of 68 people were transferred to surrounding hospitals, 21 of them suffered serious or significant injuries, including children. Two people died later in hospital. BASICS members worked with the other emergency services to provide treatment to the passengers some of whom were trapped. Most serious injures occurred to those sitting on the upper deck. All patients were triaged prior to being moved to the receiving hospitals. A Major Incident was declared and ambulances from South Central Ambulance Service and London Ambulance service ferried the patients to hospital. In November 2002 there was another coach crash on the same stretch of motorway in which 5 people died and 38 were injured.

Press Release
Once again specialist volunteer doctors, members of the British Association for Immediate Care (BASICS) were in action early this morning at the M25 coach crash near Heathrow. Teams from BASICS Berkshire , BASICS London and the Royal London Helicopter Emergency Service were drafted to the scene by the Ambulance Service. They provided specialist advanced triage and treatment to the many seriously injured and trapped victims to supplement that provided by the Ambulance Service.
Although it is standard practice in mainland Europe to despatch doctors to scenes such as that on the M25, in England the NHS has no obligation to provide such doctors and the service is provided by volunteer doctors, working in their own time, who travel and train and are equipped at their own expense.
For further details please phone the Press Officer, Dr Peter Holden on 07802 305335