00:00:07:00 – 00:00:09:07
My name’s Chloe, and I’m one of the HEMS dispatchers

00:00:09:07 – 00:00:13:08
for the South Western Ambulance Service. HEMS stands for helicopter

00:00:13:08 – 00:00:17:01
emergency medical services, and we’re responsible for dispatching

00:00:17:01 – 00:00:21:01
all of the air ambulance and critical care resources for the southwest of England.

00:00:22:06 – 00:00:26:15
Our job involves listening in to 999 calls taken by a call handler

00:00:26:15 – 00:00:31:08
in the control room, and we’re able to view all the details

00:00:31:13 – 00:00:36:11
of these incidents and also listen in to live 999 calls.

00:00:37:07 – 00:00:41:16
This helps us to make a decision whether or not to deploy an air ambulance

00:00:41:16 – 00:00:45:19
or one of our critical care resources. The type of instance we would be looking

00:00:45:20 – 00:00:51:09
to dispatch to are people who are not breathing, who’ve had serious trauma.

00:00:51:12 – 00:00:57:05
This can be things like a road traffic collision, a fall from a height or an amputation

00:00:57:22 – 00:01:02:17
We’ll also be looking to send to people who are seriously medically unwell.

00:01:03:07 – 00:01:06:09
This could be people having a heart attack in a remote location,

00:01:06:18 – 00:01:11:02
someone with serious breathing difficulties or fitting.

00:01:12:16 – 00:01:15:10
When I was younger, I wanted to be a primary school teacher,

00:01:15:15 – 00:01:20:16
so I left high school with my eleven GCSEs, went to college and did a BTEC

00:01:20:16 – 00:01:25:02
National Diploma in child development. At the end of those two years

00:01:25:02 – 00:01:29:10
I decided I no longer wanted to train to be a primary school teacher,

00:01:29:18 – 00:01:33:11
and I was working full time in retail and quickly

00:01:33:15 – 00:01:36:00
worked my way to a managerial role.

00:01:37:00 – 00:01:39:16
I stayed doing this for seven years

00:01:40:13 – 00:01:43:04
and decided then I needed a new challenge.

00:01:44:03 – 00:01:46:04
I went off to work for a bank for a year

00:01:46:10 – 00:01:49:20
and soon discovered that that was a big mistake.

00:01:49:21 – 00:01:54:03
I wanted to do something that I felt like I was helping people.

00:01:55:18 – 00:02:00:15
And also, I wanted to buy my first house, so I needed something where I could work

00:02:00:15 – 00:02:05:03
and possibly do overtime to save money, to buy my first house.

00:02:05:06 – 00:02:09:05
So I applied for a job at the ambulance service

00:02:09:08 – 00:02:13:11
as a call handler and started four weeks later.

00:02:15:06 – 00:02:18:15
I worked as a call handler for about twelve months,

00:02:19:11 – 00:02:22:12
and in that time I saw lots of different roles.

00:02:22:19 – 00:02:26:15
And one that caught my eye was the HEMS dispatcher role.

00:02:27:23 – 00:02:32:17
I managed to organize an observational shift on the HEMS desk

00:02:33:11 – 00:02:35:19
and quickly learned it was a very specialist role

00:02:35:19 – 00:02:39:15
and loved how they worked very closely with all of the air ambulance charities.

00:02:40:15 – 00:02:43:17
I got to see that they help the poorliest patients

00:02:43:18 – 00:02:46:18
and made such a difference to their outcomes

00:02:47:03 – 00:02:49:23
and knew it was something that I wanted to be a part of.

00:02:50:07 – 00:02:58:06
Shortly after this, the opportunity came up to apply for a position on the HEMS desk as a HEMS dispatcher.

00:02:58:06 – 00:03:01:05
So I applied and got offered a position

00:03:01:15 – 00:03:03:08
that was seven years ago.

00:03:04:19 – 00:03:08:12
Our job can be quite unpredictable, no two days are the same.

00:03:09:04 – 00:03:11:08
And at times can be extremely busy.

00:03:12:00 – 00:03:17:16
This will require us to dispatch multiple critical care resources at any one time,

00:03:18:16 – 00:03:19:08
so we need to

00:03:19:08 – 00:03:23:04
stay calm under pressure and have good organization

00:03:23:04 – 00:03:26:23
and communication skills with our other colleagues on the HEMS desk.