The Hanging/hanged Patient and Relevance to Pre-hospital Care

Death and injury from hanging is a complex situation, which requires careful and appropriate assessment and management in the pre-hospital environment. It is arguably an area of limited understanding and therefore may not be assessed and managed in the most effective manner. Most hanged/hanging patients will be found in their homes, rather than in institutions. It could be argued that due to prevalence as a suicide method, the majority of pre-hospital ambulance service staff will be responded to at least one hanged or hanging patient within their careers, thus a greater understanding will benefit both clinician and patient. Patients who attempt or achieve suicide will rarely achieve fracturing the spine and severing the spinal cord, bringing into question the requirement for the traditional cervical collar and spinal immobilisation techniques. Death from asphyxiation and carotid/vagal reflex require consideration and management as does raised ICP, which is likely to occur.

A Service Model For Delivering Care Closer to Home.

Upton Surgery (Worcestershire) has developed a flexible and responsive service model that facilitates multi-agency support for adult patients with complex care needs experiencing an acute health crisis. The purpose of this service is to provide appropriate interventions that avoid unnecessary hospital admissions or, alternatively, provide support to facilitate early discharge from secondary care. Key aspects of this service are the collaborative and proactive identification of patients at risk, rapid creation and deployment of a reactive multi-agency team and follow-up of patients with an appropriate long-term care plan. A small team of dedicated staff (the Complex Care Team) are pivotal to coordinating and delivering this service. Key skills are sophisticated leadership and project management skills, and these have been used sensitively to challenge some traditional roles and boundaries in the interests of providing effective, holistic care for the patient. This is a practical example of early implementation of the principles underlying the Department of Health’s (DH) recent Best Practice Guidance, ‘Delivering Care Closer to Home’ (DH, July 2008) and may provide useful learning points for other general practice surgeries considering implementing similar models. This integrated case management approach has had enthusiastic endorsement from patients and carers. In addition to the enhanced quality of care and experience for the patient, this approach has delivered value for money. Secondary care costs have been reduced by preventing admissions and also by reducing excess bed-days. The savings achieved have justified the ongoing commitment to the service and the staff employed in the Complex Care Team. The success of this service model has been endorsed recently by the ‘Customer Care’ award by ‘Management in Practice’. The Surgery was also awarded the ‘Practice of the Year’ award for this and a number of other customer-focussed projects.