Socio-Cultural case study

Socio-Cultural case study

Ambulance staff working for the NHS must work by following the NHS’s values to ensure that all patients are treated fairly. NHS, health of England (N.D) lists the NHS values as; Working together for patients, Compassion, Respect and Dignity, improving lives, commitment to quality of care and Everyone counts. In this section, I will be discussing how we worked to ensure a patient I attended was treated following the values.


We attended a category one call in the early hours of the morning to a patient fitting in a nursing home. Here’s how we used the values to provide patient centred, effective care:


Working together for Patients: “We fully involve patients, staff, families, carers, communities, and professionals inside and outside the NHS” (NHS, Health of England, N.D).  In day to day jobs the ambulance service work with a variety of others including; patients, friends, family, carers, doctors and nurses. On our arrival to the job, whilst me and the paramedic began checks on the patient the EMT gathered information from the carers present. By doing this, we found out more information about the lady, including the fact that she was Polish and can only understand basic English. They also informed us of her medical history, she was a diabetic, and had experienced hypoglycaemic episodes in the past, this prompted us to immediately check her blood sugars, which were 1.6. Staff informed us only a few hours earlier, they had been 20.3. This meant we could treat the patient accordingly. Working with the carers meant we could provide appropriate care. We also found out that she had never experienced fitting before and hadn’t had a diabetic episode in over 8 weeks. After discussions with the carers and Paramedic, we decided to take the patient to hospital, as the fit could have been caused by something else, which led her to use up her glucose. Staff provided us with the relevant information for hospital, and called her next of Kin for us, ensuring she had someone meeting her at hospital. Working with others meant we could provide patient centred care. We also worked with others in the hospital, when explaining what had happened to the family and handing over to the nurses.


Compassion: We continuously treat patients with compassion, by providing support, treatment and reassurance. When sat with the patient, her facial expressions suggested she was worried and anxious, she looked around all confused and spoke in polish to us. The lady had dementia and seemed to be confused about the situation. I sat next to her and used communication methods to explain what had happened, she kept reaching for my hand, so I held her had and reassured her that we were taking her to be seen by a doctor. She understood and her facial expression looked more reassured. We also explained everything we were going to do, using translate and gestures, to make her feel involved and reduce the concern and stress she would be experiencing. The lady didn’t like having her blood sugars taken, so each time I would make her laugh to distract her from the pain, she smiled after and was much more comfortable. As it was the early hours we also ensured she was comfortable and could sleep in the ambulance. Showing compassion ensured the lady trusted us and felt safe in our care. On leaving she thanked us for our work.


Respect and Dignity: Respect and dignity is important for every patient as they need to feel safe and comfortable in our care. For the job we attended we maintained this lady’s dignity throughout and respected her wishes. The lady was Polish, we acknowledged this and respected that she may not understand the situation, therefore we used to google translate to keep her updated with everything we were doing, and the treatment given. As the lady also had dementia, she would repeat herself a lot, we understood her needs and gave her the reassurance she needed. We also asked for consent for everything we did after administering the glucose, the lady consented to everything, however, if she hadn’t of consented, we would have accepted her choice. If the lady or any patients had any special requirements, or wishes, these would have been respected by the crew too, as ultimately it is their care, and she had the choice over what was going to happen. We also read care plans to see if we could do anything additionally for patients, and ensured we were doing everything we could to respect cultural differences and languages. In the case mentioned, I learnt the word for “hospital” and “son” along with a few other words in Polish to ensure I could at least communicate the basics with her without the use of technology, to make it more natural communication and respecting her language.


Improving Lives: On all calls, the ambulance service aim to improve the life of the individual being attended. In the NHS this can be done through innovation, clinical care as well as service improvements. (NHS, N.D). Frontline ambulance staff attend training and continuously look for way’s individuals can be living a better life, whether this be through care in the moment, or making appropriate referrals, such as safeguarding or falls referrals. We can also make suggestions to help improve an individual’s care in their home; An example of this on the call we attended was that the lady had last had her bloods taken at 5pm, we attended at 4am. If she had seen the nurses later to do bloods, this my have picked up they were dropping, and she could have been treated therefore preventing the Emergency. This was suggested to the carers and they were going to pass on the suggestion, to hopefully help the patient receive better support for her diabetes.


Commitment to quality of care: All paramedics are competent in providing high quality care to patients, ensuring patients are safe and given effective and appropriate care. This is done with every patient by assessing there needed and prioritising the care based on findings. Every patient is treated appropriately as the staff are committed to doing everything they can for the individual. This commitment is applied to every single patient they attend.


Everyone counts: “We maximise our resources for the benefit of the whole community, and make sure nobody is excluded, discriminated against or left behind”. This statement from NHS Health Education England (N.D) can be applied to paramedics, we attend every patient, no matter what scenario and treat them fairly. We never leave a patient in need and will always ensure appropriate support is in place if we are leaving a patient at home. A patient will never be judged on their race, sex or sexuality or any other discriminatory factors, and everything will be done to ensure the individual is counted, as shown in the case mentioned, She was treated fairly, even though her language and culture was different to ours.


Overall, Paramedics show respect to every individual they attend, no matter their wishes or background. They ensure everyone counts and that everyone is involved in their own care as much as possible. They remain non-judgemental and open minded throughout every job.



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