Clinician Screening of 999 calls for Overdose
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Can toxicity screening of 999 calls reduce the time taken to deliver patients who have taken a clinically significant overdose to a source of Activated Charcoal?
IRAS ID
173323
Contact name
Simon Dady
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
City University London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 0 months, 14 days
Research summary
999 calls for cases of overdose present the Health Service with a unique challenge. They range from calls from patients trying to access Mental Health Intervention to those who have intentionally or inadvertently taken too much of a prescribed medication which can result in a toxic overdose.
Treatment priorities are neutralisation and subsequent elimination of the drug consumed and this has historically been achieved through gastric detoxification with Activated Charcoal (AC). Administered orally, AC prevents the drugs’ absorption by the digestive tract but is only effective if administered in the hour immediately following ingestion.
Identifying the nature, volume and clinical significance of overdose events is not possible through the current computer aided dispatch programs used by UK Ambulance Services. Previous studies have demonstrated that Medical Priority Dispatch Systems (MPDS) are highly sensitive to life threatening situations however they have no functionality to screen for toxicity. This coupled with the increase in Ambulance Service work-rate nationally has meant that overdose patients with non-life threatening symptoms are frequently unable access health care services in an appropriate time period for AC.
The only personnel within the control room environment who are able to access key software and distinguish between toxic and non-toxic overdoses are Health Care Professionals. Current measures employed to prevent inappropriate delays include ad-hoc screening of overdose calls if no Ambulance is available in the time frames currently permitted.
This study will introduce routine clinician screening of overdose calls at the time of first contact and investigate the effect of this involvement in subsequent identification of toxic overdoses and the resultant call timings.
This study will be conducted in part fulfilment of an MRes Clinical Research. The study will be conducted for a period of two weeks in April or May 2015.REC name
East Midlands - Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0163
Date of REC Opinion
16 Apr 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion