I work for the service in question, in a different part of Scotland, and this has been discussed a lot in our station. Our view is that is simply underlines everything that's wrong with trying to replace double crewed vehicles with single crewed RRUs (rapid response units).
The official policy is that until the scene has been secured, you don't go near it if you're on your own. If you're in a double crewed vehicle, you can use your own judgement, and if possible scoop the patient up and hightail it out of there- I've done that a couple of times.
It's happening all over, and there are plans afoot to take even MORE double crewed vehicles off and replace them with RRU's, along with bolstering the apparent number of vehicles by crewing a paramedic with someone who is only trained in basic first aid and emergency driving.
Basically, our new chief exec seems to be totally focused on ONLY the response times, well, that and saving money.
This article is commenting on that:-
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish...86908-20426678/
We're all pretty unhappy with the current state of affairs- if I'm at a job, the last thing I want is to have to spend valuable time instructing my partner in what I need them to do, as it's stressful enough with a probationer technician straight from the ambulance college, who at least knows roughly what to do. I don't want my shifts turning into a mix of calls and training my partner from scratch!
This is the original article in the Daily Record:-
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish...86908-20393732/
and the Record veiw of the situation:-
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/comment/newsp...86908-20426607/
Fingers crossed that the powers that be take notice, or the politicians actually do something useful and tell them to stop hamstringing us in this way.
In answer to the first post, the union would have fought tooth and nail for the paramedic in question, and I think it's extremely unlikely that she would have lost her job, as the story would have hit the papers in no time (some helpful, anonymous soul in her station would probably have seen to that) and the service couldn't have sacked her without generating acres of bad press for themselves.