View from the front line is a siren call to TV producers

Brian Kellett was just another ambulance driver until he began blogging about daily life on the road.

Soon his tales, which ranged from the time wasters who called 999 suffering from mild flu or sore fingers to the genuinely poignant stories of those he and his team were unable to help and the loved ones they left behind, acquired a loyal following.

Before he knew it, the musings, written under the pseudonym Tom Reynolds, had been collected into a book and a television drama based on the blog is currently being screened. Tom was and is based in the East End of London, but Sirens was filmed in Leeds and, as he says himself, the reality of working on the front line of the NHS is pretty much the same wherever you are.

“It’s changing all the time, but the one thing I do know is that it’s going to get worse,” says Brian. “Hospitals are being forced to cut the number of staff they have on the road, so instead of the big ambulances they’re becoming more reliant on solo response units. People will tell you that it’s actually a good thing, cars, they say, can get around quicker than a van. That’s true, but at a lot of incidents we attend, emotions run high. If you are there alone, without back-up, it can be very difficult to actually get the job done.”

Like many of those who work as nurses and paramedics, Brian has been frustrated, but not surprised by the Government’s plans to overhaul the NHS. After months of wrangling, a listening exercise and a U-turn, no-one is clear exactly what the policy will mean in practice.

“The distance between the people who work on the front line and those who make the decisions is growing all the time,” he says. “There’s no quick fix, but to really transform the NHS you need to spend money, not cut budgets.

“If I were in charge I would increase the salaries. Then it would be possible to raise standards by only employing the very best-qualified and experienced people. Yes, it’s a vocation, but if you don’t pay people properly you will inevitably lose talent to the private sector. I think sometimes we nobble ourselves by saying how much we love our jobs. We do, but no-one works for free, we still deserve a decent standard of living.

“Raising wages would in the long term save money and deliver a first-class NHS, but no-one these days cares about the long-term, everything is about the short-term fix and how to get on the front page of a newspaper.”

Brian has worked for the NHS for 17 years, but recently left the ambulance service to work at an urgent care centre. The hours are better – no more 12-hour night shifts – but he had also become disillusioned with how the service was being run.

“On my last shift there was no defibrillator on board, you know, the machine you use to start people’s hearts. It would have taken 10 minutes to pick up a spare, but I wasn’t allowed. They wanted me on the road answering 999 calls. Everything revolved around hitting targets, but they’re meaningless if when you get to someone you don’t have the right equipment to treat them.”

While Brian clearly has issues with the Government, he also believes the public sometimes does itself no favours.

“There are a lot of time wasters and that great demon alcohol has a lot to answer for,” he says, claiming that 80 per cent of 999 calls don’t require an ambulance. “When people are drunk, they think it’s perfectly right that they can pick up the phone, dial 999 and someone will come and look after them. They tell you, ‘Well, we pay your wages, what’s the problem?’

“When I started writing the blog it was really just for me, but I realised that it was helping me to become a better practitioner. When you know you need material, you really start to examine everything around you rather than being a passive observer. That’s when I began to realise just how stretched the service is.”

However he says he has never been tempted to leave the NHS.

“Working in the urgent care centre means, unlike being an ambulance driver, I can eat food and go to the toilet without having to ask for permission, but I wouldn’t swap my career for anything. I got to ride the blue lights, what could be better than that?”

[email protected]

To tie in with the Channel 4 show, all of Tom Reynold’s blogs are now available in one edition. Sirens, published by Friday Books, priced £8.99, is available from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop on 0800 0153232 or online at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk