Friday evening I spent a fantastic evening on the night shift with one of the Ambulance crews from Scunthorpe. I previously did a night shift with the crew at Goole, part of the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, but wanted to see what it was like for the Scunthorpe crew, who are part of the East Midlands Ambulance Service.
I got to the station for about 7.30pm and was given all the necessary paper work and an important safety talk. My colleagues for the evening were Vicki and John, who I had discussed the visit with back in July when I opened the Burton Primary School fair. John and Vicki are experienced ambulance crew and certainly gave me confidence for the evening. It was a bit quiet for the first couple of hours before we were sent off to Gainsborough to attend a child.
This resulted in us making a dash to Lincoln Hospital where we were met by quite a queue of of ambulance crews with assorted patients. This was the start of a couple of calls in Lincoln before we finally got back to Scunthorpe. This was the same problem I found with the Goole crew who ended up spending quite a lot of their time outside of their patch.
By the time the early hours of Saturday arrived, we were then faced with a call or two which involved alcohol! Actually, quite a few of the cases I saw at both Scunthorpe and Lincoln hospitals seemed to be alcohol related which struck me as a massive and avoidable waste of taxpayers cash!
I finally clocked off at about 5.30 am after a really interesting evening. Credit must go to Vicki and John who were not only extremely professional but who also made me feel welcome all shift. I think we MPs have a duty to get out on the front line of the public services to see for ourselves what it is like for our dedicated professionals. Next visit is with the Police!