A day in the life of... KSS operations

A day in the life of...

Operational support

Meet our ‘go to’ team, for all things operational. They stand ready to support the crew, ensuring they have all the equipment and necessary items to carry out their work effectively. Here Larry and Maire share what a day looks like for them on our Redhill base.

7:30am We attend the morning briefing with the crew and pilots to ensure we are fully aware of any operational issues, including whether the cars or the aircraft are in use that morning and if any equipment or vehicles have been defected overnight. 8:30am The Operations Support Team briefing includes checking against our logging system for incidents or issues that may affect our service. Then we prioritise our work for the day or week. All of our major medical equipment is subjected to regular scheduled servicing and maintenance, which we organise either on site or away. We are responsible for the maintenance of the emergency response cars, including checking the oil, tyres and organising regular servicing. As a response car, even though new, they require an annual MOT due to the nature of our work, so we organise that too. 9am Some of our monitoring equipment (such as lactate and coagulation machines) require regular testing which we carry out on site as early as possible in the day before it gets busy. We also audit the equipment bags used by crew on scene, ensuring all correct items are there and expiry dates are valid.

Monitoring stock levels of our consumable medical equipment, including personal protective equipment (PPE), is vital for the safe running of our operation. We also monitor our drug and oxygen stock levels weekly to ensure we have enough on hand to treat our patients. 10am Drug order collection: Drugs include intravenous drips, prefilled syringes, oral medications and Controlled Drugs which have their own special legal ordering and storage regulations. 12pm Any crew uniforms needing repair will be left on our desk, which we then take to a local repair shop. As we have a ‘spare rail’ with different size uniforms, the crew member can borrow these in the interim. We also organise uniforms for new crew members. 1pm Following some incidents, police or solicitors will ask for medical information to assist in investigations and civil claims. We log and check requests for all necessary legal requirements and send the information in a timely manner. 2pm Our crew carry blood and plasma products to treat our most seriously ill patients. The dried plasma (Lyoplas) has to be prepared and packed safely and ready for use. 3pm Liaison with other members of the KSS Team and other agencies is vital for the smooth running of our operation. We have mandatory training to undertake at least annually. We also assist when there are new crew starting their induction programme — sometimes even acting as patients!

4pm Supply run: Sometimes the crew need food such as butter, milk, or bread, so we pop out to top up supplies!