Customer seriously ill

Purpose

This procedure describes the actions to be taken by staff in the event of encountering a customer who is seriously ill.

Responsibility

All staff

Process

Where staff arrive at the premises and only the customer is present, they should:

• If the customer is not conscious and is not able to be roused from sleep, call for ambulance attendance and follow the appropriate first aid procedure.
• Carry out first aid procedure.

If the customer is conscious, ask them:

• About their health.
• Whether they are receiving treatment from their GP.
• If the customer is receiving GP treatment, when the GP last attended and whether they want an ambulance or GP to attend at this time.
• Whether they want their next of kin or a family member to be notified at this time.
• What other support they require.

Make a quick assessment of whether there are signs that would suggest that the customer’s illness may not be normal, for example:

• Sudden onset without any previous history.
• Signs that would suggest a possible drugs’ overdose – a large quantity of empty pill packaging, tablets strewn around, etc.

Request such support as the customer has identified. If staff thinks that ambulance attendance is appropriate and the customer has not asked for this, they should discuss calling an ambulance with them.

If there are grounds to suggest that the customer’s illness may not be normal:

• Discuss the background to the illness with the customer and clarify the explanations provided in respect of each aspect that raised concern.
• If an ambulance has not been called, consider whether hospital assessment/treatment might be appropriate and request ambulance attendance.
• If it becomes clear that another party might have been involved in the circumstances leading to the customer’s illness (e.g. assisted suicide or poisoning), police attendance must be requested.
• Where another party might have been involved in events leading to the customer’s illness, take care not to disturb anything in the dwelling or to dispose of any food or drink residue.
• Express your concerns as part of the hand over to the GP, ambulance staff and/or police.

Where the Response Officer arrives at the premises and someone else is present with the customer staff should:

• Politely ascertain the name and relationship of the person present to the customer and the believed state of health of the customer.
• Ascertain how long the person has been on the premises.
• If the person could have been on the premises at the time that the alarm was operated, ascertain what type of assistance was being requested when the alarm was operated and by whom.

NOTE: Someone has operated the alarm and the assumption must be that this was a deliberate request for assistance. For this reason, the working presumption should be that the Response Officer will request emergency service attendance to record and clarify matters unless there are clear and justifiable reasons not to.