Dear Mr Morris,

I write further to an email received from Coroner’s Officer, on 19 March 2015, to which she attached a Regulation 28 Report to Prevent Future Deaths. This report was made by you following the inquest into the death of Kevin Hoey, which concluded on 12 March 2015, and recommended that the Trust consider introducing training similar to East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EMAS) in line with their Paramedic Pathfinder Programme.

Prior to the inquest, one of the Trust’s Clinical Managers had already met with our EMAS colleagues and discussed the Paramedic Pathfinder Programme, with a view to suggesting that the Trust consider implementing this training. The Trust welcomes any improvements to support paramedics in their decision making and will be reviewing this case to ensure that learning is embedded to mitigate any chance of this being repeated. The Trust would respectfully like to point out that in a case where the initial patient assessment and history taking was completed by another healthcare professional from EMAS, the EEAST clinicians would have taken a professional steer from this first clinical contact. Whilst the Trust recognises this may have ultimately contributed to this patient’s tragic deterioration, the Trust does acknowledge that the primary assessment had already been undertaken by a registered professional.

Following your recommendation, the Paramedic Pathfinder Programme has been discussed at the Trust’s Clinical Quality and Safety Group (CQSG), which is attended by the Locality Directors and a number of senior clinical managers. As Chair of CQSG, I requested that the Paramedic Pathfinder Programme be reviewed by a group of clinicians to scope out how this could be implemented within the Trust and what the implications are to our current training programme. This piece of work is currently ongoing.

I would be happy to update you further once this review has been completed. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information in the meantime.