GRIP
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GRIP – GRID REFERENCE IDENTIFICATION PROJECT Asirus - working in conjunction with the Scottish Ambulance Service and the Fire and Rescue Service To further its support to asthma sufferers, Asirus
has launched In such areas, in many instances, roads are at best single track with passing places; in the event of an asthma attack it is not only the length of time taken by an ambulance, helicopter or paramedic to reach the patient which is important, but also the length of time taken to bring the patient to a hospital. |
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In the case of an asthma patient, when the ability to breathe is deteriorating every minute counts. Equally, when an ambulance is searching for a rural location it may be impeded by obscure directions or lack of any identification; many locations are out of sight from a road, up an unmarked track, without a house or farm sign or any other indication on the roadside that a dwelling exists there. Even if there is roadside identification, in bad weather it may have been blown down or obliterated by driven snow.
GRIP has
been acknowledged in the Press: “Life saving device has great
potential” and “.. a simple, and yet vital, service”. Not
only will the identification of the grid reference greatly assist
the Scottish Ambulance Service and the Fire and Rescue Service
in
locating that patient,
but it will be of significant value to a patient calling any of
the emergency services.
GRIP currently operates in Grampian, Highlands and Islands, Tayside and Argyll and Bute, and will be extending southwards into the Lothians and the Scottish Borders shortly.
Whilst maintaining complete patient confidentiality, these patients need to be identified. In the first instance, Asirus contacts rural health centres asking them to identify their at-risk patients and invite them to agree to their addresses and telephone numbers being passed to Asirus. A member of the Asirus Committee then contacts the patient to make an appointment to visit their address with a hand-held GPS to enable an accurate grid reference to be taken. (The GPS will only function out-of-doors so no access is required to the patient’s house). The grid reference is then forwarded immediately to the Scottish Ambulance Service for entry onto their Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre database, and to the Fire and Rescue Service for entry onto their system.
This database has a built-in facility to accommodate GRIP patients, all of whom now have their own GRIP Number. They are issued with a laminated business-type card, showing their grid reference and their GRIP Number, to be kept close to the telephone for use when making a call to an emergency service. Their emergency call to the Ambulance or Fire and Rescue Service, needing only to state their GRIP number, immediately flags up their grid reference, alternative names by which their house may be known, details of their medical condition, any known allergies and, most importantly, the fact that this patient is known to be at risk. Should, say, a GRIP registered asthmatic request emergency assistance from the Fire and Rescue Service, a call would automatically be forwarded to the Ambulance Service to attend: asthma and smoke inhalation are a potentially fatal combination.
By this sharing of modern technology, the vulnerability of rural patients is being firmly addressed. This service is completely free of charge to the patient, whose details are treated in the strictest confidence.