Purpose
To outline the minimum information required by the Ambulance Service from lifesaving services/State Operations Centre regarding a patient’s condition.
Policy
SLSNSW expects lifesaving services to align their procedures with the information gathering requirements of the Ambulance Service of NSW.
Procedure
Good incident management involves the correct and concise collection and communication of information.
The Ambulance Service has a standard set of questions it must answer before it can respond by sending an Ambulance to an incident. To maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of a response lifesaving services (including SurfCom) should align their procedures to the following:
Note: Ambulances should be requested via the State Operations Centre (or via Triple Zero only if SurfCom is not available). If injuries are non-life-threatening, NSW Ambulance may not provide an ETA.
Procedure – Patient Reporting
Lifesaving personnel should provide the following information to SurfCom regarding a patient’s condition.
Lifesaving personnel should continue to monitor the SurfCom radio channel, as SurfCom will provide any relevant updates over this channel.
Primary Information
SurfCom should provide the following information to the Ambulance:
- Patient Sex
- Patient Age
- Mechanism of Injury (what happened)
- What is the injury
- Breathing Present?
- Level of Consciousness
- Chest Pains?
- Patient location/access point (beach, club house first aid room etc.)
- What action/treatment lifesavers are administering.
- Update if patient condition deteriorates (loss of consciousness, difficulty breathing etc.)
Secondary Information
- Is the patient changing colour?
- Is the patient clammy?
- Does the patient have a history of heart problems?
- Did the patient take any drugs or medication in the past 12 hours
Incident Reporting Matrix – Patient Injury
| Action | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Inform SurfCom (via radio) | Identifies your call as an emergency and prioritises it above non-emergency transmissions | “Rescue, Rescue, Rescue – SurfCom, SurfCom, this is [Club/Service Name], over” |
| Problem | Outline what has happened – mechanism of injury | “SurfCom we have one patient who has been run over by a surfboard and has severe laceration to their head” |
| People | Outline the details of the patient and their condition | “Patient is Male, aged 36yrs old. Patient is breathing. Patient is conscious. Patient is bleeding severely from the head. Patient has no chest pains, over” |
| Position | Where is the patient located? How can emergency services best access them? |
“Patient has been transported to the Surf Club, at the corner of Old Bar Rd and Ungala Rd. A lifesaver will be positioned on the side of the road to direct the ambulance, over” |
| Progress | SurfCom should be updated if the patient’s condition deteriorates | “SurfCom this is [Club/Service Name] the patient has lost consciousness, over” |
Reference
Ambulance Service of NSW
Triple Zero