Helena Rosén1, Johan Persson2, Andreas Rantala3, Lina Behm4. 1. Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, SE 221 00 Lund, Sweden. Electronic address: helena.rosen@med.lu.se. 2. Department of Pre- and Intra-hospital Emergency Care, Helsingborg Hospital, SE 251 87 Helsingborg, Sweden. 3. Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, SE 221 00 Lund, Sweden; Department of Pre- and Intra-hospital Emergency Care, Helsingborg Hospital, SE 251 87 Helsingborg, Sweden. 4. Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, SE 221 00 Lund, Sweden.
Abstract
AIM: The aim was to explore the ambulance service as experienced by present and former employees. BACKGROUND: Over the last decade, the number of ambulance assignments has increased annually by about 10%, and as many as 50% of all ambulance assignments are considered non-urgent. This raises questions about which assignments the Ambulance Service (AS) is supposed to deal with. DESIGN/ METHOD: Data were collected from three focus group interviews with a total of 18 present and former employees of the Swedish AS. An inductive qualitative analysis method developed by Krueger was chosen. RESULTS: Five themes emerged in the analysis: "Poor guidance for practice", "An unclear assignment", "Being a gate keeper", "From saving lives to self-care" and "Working in no man's land", which together constitute the AS. CONCLUSION: Present and former employees of the AS in Sweden describe their mission as unclear and recognize the lack of consensus and a clearly developed mission statement. Furthermore, expectations and training mainly focus on emergency response, which is contrary to the reality of the ambulance clinicians' everyday work.
AIM: The aim was to explore the ambulance service as experienced by present and former employees. BACKGROUND: Over the last decade, the number of ambulance assignments has increased annually by about 10%, and as many as 50% of all ambulance assignments are considered non-urgent. This raises questions about which assignments the Ambulance Service (AS) is supposed to deal with. DESIGN/ METHOD: Data were collected from three focus group interviews with a total of 18 present and former employees of the Swedish AS. An inductive qualitative analysis method developed by Krueger was chosen. RESULTS: Five themes emerged in the analysis: "Poor guidance for practice", "An unclear assignment", "Being a gate keeper", "From saving lives to self-care" and "Working in no man's land", which together constitute the AS. CONCLUSION: Present and former employees of the AS in Sweden describe their mission as unclear and recognize the lack of consensus and a clearly developed mission statement. Furthermore, expectations and training mainly focus on emergency response, which is contrary to the reality of the ambulance clinicians' everyday work.