You have a very valid point there. You should never administer someone else’s PRESCRIBED medicine to another person, especially if that person is incapacitated and unable to tell you of any allergies. A bout of anaphylaxis is the last thing someone needs hours from definitive medical care!
This is the real benefit of passing a proper first aid / ambulance aid / mountain craft first aid course in that you work within your defined level of protocols, and providing you do not step outside the bounds of your limits, then no one could successful sue for any liabilities incurred.
It is also within established common law protocols that the "good Samaritan rule" comes into force when you try to assist someone, and this principle relies on the premise that to NOT help someone who's life might be threatened is worse than to try to do "something" to help!
Sure, Tony, and 'offering' my inhaler and leaving it within their reach isn't the same as actually holding it to someone's mouth and giving them no choice.....or that's the principle I would use, preceded by asking 'Are you having an asthma attack?, of course.....I hope that wouldn't be 'prescribing' then.....
I don't know if you know, Tony, but Ben B is a medical doctor therefore he CAN prescribe where I can't.
When I did a first aid course I was told that the 'good samaritan' rule did not apply. This was merely an appointed person course (which is a complete waste of time, both in practical and legal terms)but the point being made was general, that if you did walk past someone on the street injured etc. and gave them help which later proved counter productive you would be open to being sued, something which apparently is quite likely and is by no means unheard off. The course was for a work environment so there was perhaps a bit more preoccupation with the risk of being sued than on an outdoor oriented course where the tradition of stopping to help someone in trouble is much stronger.
has info on the spenco second skin dressings. Germolene do a liquid one which works really well on cuts and the like. Never used it on a blister so don't know how well it would work. Is basically a liquid disinfectant that hardens on contact with the skin. You can get that from Boots stores and Penrith survival sell the Spenco stuff.
And of course, 'common law' isn't real law anyway....like there is no such thing as a 'common law wife' although old wives/gimmers would have you think so.
What I have been told in the past as regards Good Samaritans, is: if Joe Bloggs tries his best to help an injured person, then fine, whatever happens. But if Josephine Bloggs has a First Aid certificate and then something goes wrong, she can be sued.
I was told that irrespective of qualifications you can be sued if things go pear shaped. This was on a course about 6 months ago. The example given was that the instructor knew of an unqualified friend who had tried to give CPR to a heart attack victim, who had survived (whether or not because of the CPR was unclear), but who also sustained a couple of broken ribs in the process through the use of incorrect CPR technique. The samaritan got sued. I know for definite that if you have a first aid in the workplace qualification for instance, you are not meant to give first aid anywhere outside the workplace.
Yes You are partially right Jeannie and partially wrong.
Common law is custom handed down over the ages and accepted de-facto principles used by the courts and are held as "irrefutable." Did you know for example that a person charged with murder is charged "contrary to common law!"
The "good samaritan" rule is an irrefutable common law principle and no one would be successful in sueing in a civil court where such a principle is established and upheld in a criminal court.
Yes, the good samaritan rule is superceded by the principles of an individuals protocols if they have qualified in some form of advanced first aid, and their protocols then become the standard of their duty of care to the person they are helping.
Provided those person act within and comply fully with their protocols, then they CANNOT be successfully sued for any subsequent harm. If this were not so, then you would not have a single praticing Paramedic in this country, as they would all be fearfull of being sued if the patient suffered a poor prognosis. Of course they could be sued if they step outside the bounds of their protocols or perform them incorrectly or incompetantly, but that is a different matter.
I rather gathered that Ben was such, but don't start me on doctors, they can bury their mistakes!!!! ;-))))
Seriously though, Ben would have to agree that he and his like can diagnose, whereas everyone below his level are protocol driven, our Paramedics just one example.
The bottom line is that ANYONE can Sue ANYONE else for whatever takes their fancy, the crux is will they be successful? The answer lies in the fact that if you have a/ common law principles or b/ set protocols that you have followed, then you should be OK.
And Greg, your instuctor friend is TOTALLY wrong. In the Welsh Ambulance Service, as in many other parts of the country, we use a system called the Advanced Medical Priority System, where one of our operators stays on the line with a caller and gives instructions over the phone until the arrival of an Ambulance.
We therefore regularly give CPR/Choking?childbirth and other instructions to usually unqualified persons over the phone.
Now bearing in mind that we cannot see the patient, and that we are relying totally on set PROTOCOLS to establish the facts and give out instructions, do you think for one minute that this would now be the set standard in the UK, if either we or the caller cold be sued?
I cannot reiterate it enough, if you follow you protocols correctly, no one could successfully sue you!
Tony, but surely if you're on your own without assistance and have no first aid qualifications then you're not operating within any established protocols? If you have the assistance of paramedics over the phone then are you in a sense acting within their protocols maybe?
Similarly with the 'first aid in the workplace' qualification if your protocols assume that you're in a particular environment, taking action outside of that environment would presumably invalidate those protocols. I know for definite that the legal advice given to those within my organisation who possess 'first aid in the workplace' (which I would have thought is as much as most people outside St. Johns, paramedics etc. will possess) is that it is only valid for the workplace and they become liable if they practice outside the workplace.
This is just what I've been told by my employers. I work in a gym and we are under strict instructions that if someone injures themselves such as a cut or graze, those without first aid qualifications (or who only possess an 'appointed person')can show them where the first aid box is, and provide first aid materials, but cannot actively help them in treatment. As I need to do a more thorough first aid course for my ML course and am working on getting my employers to go halves/pay everything, I'd be interested if you think that the above is wrong as it's something which I've been trying to get my employers to be clear about for ages, and so far I have only managed to arrive at the above, which is pretty unsatisfactory as far as I'm concerned.
IAm going to have a rant and before I start I am not having a go at anybody here but it really annoys me when people dismiss out of hand common law. Common law has been built up over centuries and is much stronger and usually far more sensible than so called written law. With all its major rewrites and amendements to overcome the nonsense that parliament has made. Just look at the dangerous dogs act. If the common law had been upheld any dog with a problem would have been destroyed but the new law is bad law and innocent animals were persecuted. It used to be every free born Englishmans right to go to the House of Lords where in 99.999r cases common law was upheld over everything else!
A.P. Herbert I think it was who wrote a little book about our law and explained why common law was so good for the working man, and why parliament always wants to write law so they can control us.
What an onslaught Greg, but I will do my best. Before I do, please remember that all I say is MY opinion based on MY protocols and 18 years experience in the Ambulance Service, a Search & rescue unit and Cave rescue!
If a person has NO formal first aid qualifications then the common law principle of "the good samaritan" rule would apply. I am not saying that under that concept someone could NEVER be sued, but provided the person did what they could under a "common sense" principle, then any subsequent legal action would have extreme difficulty in being successful. If on the other hand the person had watched that BBC comedy show, "Casualty," and based upon what they had watched, attempted to perform a cricoid thoracotomy with an empty bic biro case, then yes, I think the respondent would have grounds for recourse!!!
A current first aid at work qualification is valid ANYWHERE,(Those underwritten by the HSE, which the majoirty are) and if someone curently qualified DID NOT help someone, then they may actually be open to being sued if non action caused an imparement to the patient's outcome. (This has not yet been established in case law, but the potential is there!)
I rather think that your employers are being "economical" with the truth, in as much as they might think they may be held responsible for your actions. This is simply untrue however. Every person is individuall responsible in law for their actions, which is why it is important to follow their own protocols. Most of these employers pay lip service to first aid at work anyway, it is a legal requirement that they have to fulfill, and most could not give two hoots about actaully helping people. And if you wonder where that bit of cynicism eminates from, it is the culmination of 18 years in the Ambulance Service!
Cheers Tony. Employers being economical with the truth. I'm shocked ;-). Not working for a week, but will be sure to have a chat with the training officer when I next see her.
As an afterthought Greg, we have many “first responder” schemes involving Leisure centres. Now I am gong to be very political here and state that from the government’s point of view, these schemes are in place simply to “stop the clock,” and cover up the fact that we do not have enough Ambulance resources to hit their ridiculous 8 minute standards for All cat “A” life threatening calls, particularly in rural areas, but that is another story.
The point is that man of these leisure centres; garages and even large shops are quite willing to allow their staff to venture outside of their premises to render aid to those in need.
Admittedly, they are covered by the Ambulance service responder scheme, but the crux is that they have HSE “ first aid at work qualifications” as a minimum and are then trained to use Ambulance specific equipment such as semi Auto defibrillators. The qualification however is UK universal once obtained.
If you joined a Mountain rescue team that required this qualification as a minimum, then they will cover you whilst you are on duty with them, so your employers cannot claim exclusivity over your qualification.
It might even benefit them to talk to your local Ambulance service about joining a first responder scheme, as all the equipment and training is then provided free of charge!
Bryan - I hope I didn't upset you but I only repeated what I had been told!
With regards to the CPR thing, when I had my *first* St John's training years back, it was made explicit to us that successful heart compressions could well result in fractured ribs, which led to 2 points:
(1) Do NOT attempt it unless you are really sure that the heart has stopped as a fractured rib may pierce the heart or lung and hasten death.
(2) If the heart HAS stopped, then a live patient with a fractured rib is in less trouble than a stiff.
Before that begins to sound TOO frightening, just bear in mind that I, along with millions of others, have had fractured ribs and haven't managed to puncture any organs.
I will give you another example. A motor cyclist has been knocked off his motorcycle.
What is the first thing that "we" are told?
NEVER remove his/her helmet (I nearly typed helment then!!!)
What if the patient is NOT breathing. Sorry, you are not going to give resus to a patient with a full face crash helmet on. Our protocols are to remove the helmet (As carefully as possible, and commence CPR
A live paralised biker is supposedly better than a dead one with an intact spinal cord!
(Any biker faced with that my feel differently after but would be hard pressed to sucessfully sue someone if the action saved their life!!!!)
This resus business, when I worked ,many years ago now thank God. I did as part of my job first aid training from time to time. This changed over the years but the one thing that remained was after a motorbike accident you put the rider into the recovery possition! than we started to be trained to move people with great care in case of a broken back.Then they started to say do not remove his helmet and don't move them! Fortunately I retired early, about then. It would be nice however if all the powers that be came to a single set of rules for simple passers by.
I am actually half-way through a first aid at work course sponsored by the search & rescue team that I belong to, and I'm gratified that everything Tony says squares with what we were told by the instructor last week. As rescue team members we're expected to try and help people anyway, even when we are not on a callout and the instructor said that as long as you have done your best in accordance with your training you cannot be sued.
Well just before the Tories got kicked out of office they commissioned a report to look into the response times for Ambulances to arrive at Emergencies. The committee decided that the standards of ARRIVAL should be for all cat "A" (life threatening calls) we should arrive at 95% of the calls within 8 minutes of the request for an Ambulance. For Cat "B" calls (all other non life threatening emergencies, 18 mins or 20 dependant on location.
This was supposed to be linked to the AMPDS system and allow Ambulance managers like myself in control rooms to prioritise calls according to medical criteria rather than who rang 999 first. If they had implemented this option then it might have been somewhere sustainable, but they did not implement this second half of the equation so Ambulance controllers cannot officially prioritise calls. If you have stubbed your toe last night, and the “anaesthetic” has worn off, you cannot drive, and you then ring 999, then you still get that Ambulance decided on time, rather than need. They are frightened stiff of litigation so very often on a weekend night shift, Controllers are risking their own necks to unofficially prioritise!
When they realised that we were failing miserably to hit their ridiculous targets, and we warned them we would, they came up with the first responder scheme, which basically means that we can call upon specially trained members of the public to attend ahead of the Ambulance to administer help until it arrives. It is being sold on the premise of “helping” the community, and drawing on the public’s willingness to do someone’s job for nothing, much like the “hobby Bobbies.” (Special Constabulary)
This is the clever bit though; the first responders STOP THE CLOCK. So even if it takes the Ambulance 30 minutes to arrive and the patient dies, the magic 8 minutes has been achieved and so the incident can be claimed as a successful target and will not show up in the failure to meet standards figures.
Don’t get me wrong, in perhaps 10% of cases, the first responders may actually do some good, but in the other 90% they are nothing more than clock stoppers!
We had hoped that when this Government came into power they would look at it again and change it. I think when they saw what a properly funded service would cost the taxpayer; they lost their bottle1 Very disappointing that!
