PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT.

Throughout the year we support hundreds of large-scale public events, including football matches and concerts. That’s not any different during the summer. Even when we don’t have a large role in providing medical care, we want to make sure the public is kept safe.

One example of this is the annual Parklife Festival in Manchester, which took place over a weekend at the beginning of June. More than 140,000 people visited Heaton Park over the two days.

Ahead of the event, organisers, blue light services and health and local authority agencies, including the council and Transport for Greater Manchester, got together at Manchester Central to run a tabletop exercise to test the safety plans in place.

Many extreme scenarios were discussed, including what would happen if unsafe recreational drugs caused a mass casualty incident, if there was severe transport disruption and even if a sinkhole opened on the main road route to the festival.

Resilience Manager Nick Bell said, “We organised the event to ensure plans are flexible and robust.

“We don’t expect the worst to happen, but it’s important to know that everyone involved knows what they would do if it did and also make sure that the plans are sufficient to keep people safe. On the day, we had detailed discussions about the processes in place, and where there were any gaps, agencies could go away and reassess in time for the event.

“While NWAS had a minimal number of resources on the site, we still have a major role in keeping people safe. These exercises are vital, and we try to make sure these tests are held before all major events.”

Advanced Paramedic Martin Rolls, acts as the NWAS operational commander at Parklife. He said: “A third-party provider was responsible for the primary medical care for the festival; NWAS was there simply to provide backup in case the worst happened.

“Happily, none of the scenarios we tested for came to fruition. Given how slick and professional the running of Parklife is, it was still impressive to see how plans kicked into place when things didn’t quite go as scheduled. All agencies are there for the safety of festival goers, and that focus remained in place all weekend.”

It goes without saying that our ambulance crews need to know so many different types of conditions and illnesses. Often, they need to think quickly if something changes with the patient they are treating. That may seem obvious for physical conditions such as if someone’s heart rate or breathing drops but what if a 52-year-old suddenly has the demeanour and understanding of a young child?

This is exactly what happens to Beverly Greenwood, one of our Patient and Public Panel members from Northwich in Cheshire and who is also a NHS Governor for mental health and social care. Beverly has various medical conditions and has been diagnosed with three complex neurological conditions; Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder (NEAD) and Dissociative Conversion Disorder (DCD).

Beverly is keen to raise awareness of what may happen to patients if they have a neurological episode, as they can all present in different ways and in some instances may be mistaken as being drunk. This is why she wears a medical bracelet and lanyard to provide guidance to others if something does happen to her and potentially save an unnecessary ambulance call out.

Beverly explains how a DCD episode affects her: “If my body gets under too much stress or I’m ill, my brain takes me to a safe space. One minute I can talk to you as a 52 year old and at some point I can turn into a seven year old and my voice changes and I would have no clue where I am.”

If this happens her husband is often around to reassure her and explain but if she’s on her own it can cause confusion for her and those around her.

On one occasion during the COVID-19 lockdown, Beverly had to travel to hospital in an ambulance alone. When she got in the ambulance she spoke to the crew as an adult but soon after she suddenly changed into a seven year old.

Beverly recalls the sound of her inhaling the nebuliser was like the noise Darth Vader makes in the Star Wars films. So to help make her journey into hospital a more exciting one for a ‘seven-year-old,’ the crew caring for her took on the roles of different Star Wars characters, as she explains:

“They made my journey into hospital an exciting trip because we pretended that the ambulance was a starship and then when we got to hospital one of the crew said to me don’t forget to use your lightsaber, which was my walking stick.”

“This was amazing for me to get a crew like that, they were still treating me, they were still giving me what I needed. I must admit, I’ve been very very fortunate, I’ve always had crews that have been able to think on their feet very, very fast.”

It took Beverly two years to be diagnosed with Dissociative Conversion Disorder by specialist neurologists and has been told that one day she could go into a seven year old and not come out of it.