A Day in the Life of a Rennie Grove Peace Paramedic

Caring for patients at home…

Neil Thomas is a paramedic in the Rennie Grove Peace Hospice at Home Team. He works in the Overnight Team to make sure people get the care and support they need throughout the night.

Neil says: “As a Paramedic for Rennie Grove Peace, I provide overnight care for patients in their own homes.

“Patients, or their loved ones, can call us at any point in the night if they are concerned and feel they need some extra support.

“Once the phone call comes through, I can either offer advice over the telephone, or visit the patient’s home and assess their symptoms and provide the care they need.

“We normally get called when a patient is in pain or agitated. As a paramedic, I do a full assessment of the patient’s symptoms. If their symptoms have worsened, it can sometimes be a progression of the disease or another cause. We can administer the correct medication or, if needed, refer the patient to an on-call doctor.

“Sometimes the patient or their family just need reassurance, or the patient might need to be turned over in bed or repositioned, so they become more comfortable.

“For the loved ones who are caring at home, it can be incredibly stressful and tiring, so we do what we can to reassure them. By providing the medication or reassurance that the patient needs, we also help their family get some well-needed rest

“I recently visited a patient whose wife wasn’t getting any sleep. Her husband was agitated through the day and night, and she felt that she had to constantly sit up and watch him. To help, we arranged for a Marie Curie nurse to go in and sit with him throughout the night so she could get some rest.

“I feel strongly that people should have the end-of-life care they want – whether that be in a hospice or in their own homes.

“The best part of my job is knowing that I am helping someone to get the support they need, where they want it.

“My shift finishes at 7.15am. My last task is to handover to the Day Team, after which I head home for some breakfast, a cuppa and then bed.”