‘Tinder clinicians’ and the ambulance staff categorising emergency calls

An elderly cancer patient, unconscious at home, surrounded by her worried family, and a five-month-old baby who has been covered in shower gel by their autistic sibling.

These are examples of calls received by control room staff – and they have to decide who really needs an ambulance.

I spent a day in one of the control rooms, speaking to staff and listening to some of the 999 calls.

The way they are dealing with these calls is attracting attention from around the globe – I wanted to find out how it’s going, and if Wales is an outlier or an innovator?

Calls are put into categories – purple and red as the most urgent, orange for things like heart attacks and strokes, then yellow and green for lower priority calls.

And most will require a closer look by a trained specialist.

“Some colleagues refer to us the Tinder clinicians,” said one clinical navigator.

He then explained that by swiping left, calls are placed in the stack requiring further triage by a nurse or paramedic, but a swipe right means they’re in the wait for an ambulance.

The majority of calls in Wales, though, don’t get an ambulance.

But nor should they.

There was one from a woman in her 40s going through alcohol withdrawal begging hostel staff for help, then an elderly man, who had fallen at home, with his frail wife unable to move him.

In a typical month, around 50,000 calls will come in – each with their own personal emergency.

But on an average day, just 2.6% are deemed the most life-threatening “purple calls” which warrant a blue-light response in a target of six to eight minutes.

Different solutions have been designed for those who may not benefit from a trip to A&E, freeing up finite resources for those who definitely would.