Other Patient and Health Care Assistants
This unit group covers Patient and Health Care Assistants not elsewhere classified. It includes Patient Transport Officers.
A day on the transport run
You are a patient transport officer driving a non-emergency vehicle, picking up patients from home and taking them to appointments. It is 7am at the depot. You have six pick-ups today, each with an appointment time. A vehicle check is the first job, and the dispatcher has already added a change to your list.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
Change of plan. The patient on your third pick-up needs a stretcher, not a wheelchair, and the vehicle you have is set up for the chair. Do you want to swap vehicles or should I send someone else?
Take the vehicle you have and work out the stretcher when you get there
At the patient's house you find that the vehicle cannot carry the stretcher safely. You have wasted time, and the patient is left waiting. The right vehicle needs to be sorted before you go.
Tell Thandi you will swap vehicles now and ask her to re-time the other pick-ups
The swap takes ten minutes, and Thandi tells the other patients exactly when to expect you. Being clear about what you need keeps the whole run honest.
Ask her to send someone else for the stretcher patient, and keep your own run as planned
It works, but another crew is pulled off a different job. You could have solved this yourself with a ten-minute swap, and saved a colleague the trouble.
Can we stop at the chemist on the way? I have run out of something and the appointment is long. It is only a minute. Please, mate.
Check the clock and the route, and stop for a few minutes if you have time in hand
You have fifteen minutes spare, so you pull up and wait. He is back in the van quickly and arrives with time to settle. Looking at the time before deciding made a kind answer possible.
Tell him you would like to, but a stop would put his appointment at risk, and ask the dialysis unit if they can help
Mr Gallagher is disappointed, but the unit can help him. It works out, though you could have checked first how much time you actually had in hand.
Stop without checking, because he is a regular and has never caused you any trouble
The chemist has a queue and you arrive late. The unit starts him on a later chair, and the whole afternoon shifts. Kindness without a check on time can cost the patient more.
He's been unusually confused today and he threw up a little earlier. I'm sure it's nothing, so please don't mention it to the hospital. I don't want to cause trouble.
Agree to say nothing because the family knows him best
The clinic is not warned, and the staff are caught off guard when he deteriorates in the waiting room. A change in how someone is must be passed on, even when the family would rather not.
Ask her to ring the clinic herself while you load him in the van
She makes the call, but you are halfway down the road before the clinic has been told. It is helpful that she was involved, but it is your job to pass it on.
Thank her for telling you, say you need to pass it on, and let dispatch and the clinic know on the way
Dispatch alerts the clinic, and staff meet you at the door with a chair. She is relieved it was noticed. You were honest with her, and you kept the patient safe.
How it went
The last patient is home and the vehicle is washed and logged. You were a driver, a carer and a timekeeper all in one day. Patient transport asks you to be calm, kind and punctual together. Could you stay steady when a plan changes and a patient is relying on you?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The patient who did not want to go
A fictional case set in a non-emergency patient transport service running between homes and hospitals in a fictional region.
The situation
Keith was a patient transport officer collecting Mrs Dimitriou for her weekly appointment at the hospital. When he arrived, she was dressed but sitting at her kitchen table, refusing to move. She said she was too tired and did not want to be a nuisance. Her daughter was not home. The booking had a tight window, and two more patients were waiting on his run.
What they did
Keith sat down at the kitchen table and had a cup of tea with her for a few minutes. Mrs Dimitriou told him she was nervous about the lift because she had stumbled on it the week before. He walked through each step of the exit with her, showing her where he would stand. He rang the dispatcher to say he would be a few minutes late, and the dispatcher told the next patient.
How it turned out
Mrs Dimitriou made her appointment with minutes to spare. Keith wrote a note on her record that she needed time at the lift, so the next officer would know. The dispatcher said later that the call about the delay was the most helpful thing he had done that day.
What would you do?
- Why was it better to sit down than to coax her out the door?
- How should an officer decide when to call dispatch about a delay?
- What small notes on a record could help the next person?