RCEM & NASMeD Adult Cardiac Arrest Arrival at ED document
Summary statement
RCEM and the Ambulance Services have worked together to agree a document about the processes for adults in cardiac arrest arriving by ambulance at Emergency Departments.
The document describes a process where a senior ED clinician can make an assessment of the need for ongoing resuscitation and where that should occur (as many EDs have more than one resuscitation area during the pandemic). The ED senior clinician has the duty of care for the patient from the point of the start of their assessment of the patient in the ambulance.
The agreement to adopt this process is reliant upon the ED/acute trusts having a process for handover of the patient within 15 minutes, irrespective of the decision of the senior clinician, allowing the ambulance clinicians to be available for the next 999 emergency in the community.
The NHS Ambulance Services will be contacting each Acute Trust to confirm the arrangements can be fulfilled before the agreed start date for the process.
You can read the full document here:
Please do cascade this information to your teams.
