We are about to have ECA’s (Emergency care assistants) go live in our county, for htose who dont know, ECA’s are basically Ambulance drivers, they have very limited skills, and cannot convey patients on their own, or carry out many of the emergency skills that Technicians or Paramedics can do, basically they are Techs on the cheap.
The problem we have is that the Techs in our service have refused to be paired up with the ECA’s because the techs do not get paid to supervise staff, and basically if the ECA’s fuck up, then the Techs will be held accountable, and of course they dont want that to happen.
I have also foudn out that one of the clinical instructions that will be presented when they go live is that if an ECA is paired up with a Tech, when they get sent to a job they will have to be immediatly backed up by a Paramedic!, this is a truely stupid instruction, our county is bereft of Paramedics as it is, and to tie them up on every job that an ECA and Tech attends is not only a complete waste of a resource, but is also very undermiming to the Techs.
