About Us
Our Role (draft)
Our primary and prioritised role is to be medics, and we are part of a team with whom we must communicate. Bearing that clearly in mind, we are individuals with autonomous choice.
While we work collectively, we respect the medical hierarchy of skills and expertise in crisis situations. If we have criticism of anyone's work (aside from something imminently dangerous) we will bring this up in debriefing later, not at the time.
Depending on the medical situation, the patient's safety/security is paramount. As medics we work for long-term health, and safety/security is part of this.
As an organisation, we don't negotiate with police or give them any info. As individuals, we don't talk to the police unless we feel we have to, in which case we will always exercise extreme caution. (The example that came up here was an emergency situation when only the police would have the ability to clear an exit route for the patient).
We are not currently trained to deal with psychiatric cases, however we aim to educate ourselves in this area.
We will create and distribute after-care cards, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) information.
Membership of Group
UK Action Medics is a group of accredited, trained people. As we want to be trusted by our community we have minimum standards for any potential members who will be medics on the street. We will work with other groups with their own standards, and offer various levels of training to other activists. We want other groups to have confidence that any medic working with UK Action Medics will be up to scratch.
However, we also need help from people with all sorts of skills at large protests. We can use nurses, doctors, funders, medics, first-aiders, drivers, admin/phone people, child-carers, vegan cooks, and "sidekicks" - calm people to support the above. If you can spare us any time to help in any way, whether or not you have any previous experience or training, then get in touch.
The minimum standards are:
One of
- First Aid at Work Certificate (HSE Approved)
- OR 2 and a 1/2 day Street Medic Training PLUS CPR
- OR equivalent (eg EF! Wilderness Medical Training 2004)
And
- CS gas competence
- AND street training / experience
- AND experience or training in working non-hierarchically/with consensus
New applicants must meet these standards. Their qualifications to be checked by any (one?two?) current member/s, who will sight certificates and make decision on competence/compatible working methods of applicant. We will do our best to help with training. We will try to provide regular CS gas training, and may in future require new applicants to complete our own examination.
We will have a central registrar (not on web) PGPed. Details will be added when available.
We will develop/agree on our own protocols (ie the specific methods we use). Details will be added when available.
Communications
We have an internal email list for members and we meet in person (at least) every three months.
Exclusion Procedure
There may be occasions we need to exclude people. We hope we will rarely (if ever) have to do this. So we need to define behaviour that may lead to exclusion, and the process required to exclude people.
There are three areas of behaviour which may lead to exclusion
- Dangerous medical practice.
- Breaking our principles. For example giving lots of information to the police.
- Inappropriate behaviour, including sexual harassment, racism, bullying ...
The process aims to try and resolve problems without exclusion, but exclusion must be an option. We encourage a culture of constructive criticism, altering behaviour before it becomes a big problem. We aim to start friendly and go through the steps below, but these are ultimately guidelines and serious cases may skip a few steps.
The normal first step should be taken in the debrief rather on the street - unless the situation is very serious, eg. very dangerous medical practice. And we aim to start with a friendly chat, challenging practices face to face.
If the issue is not resolved after one-to-one discussion, then it should be taken to the group. If possible concentrate on the practices involved, not the person. If names are not necessary for the discussion, then do not mention names.
A meeting of the group may decide to give a formal warning - "Sort it out or leave the group". The consensus decision model will be used, but note that
- The decision process excludes the person about whom the decision is being made.
- People can abstain / stand aside.
- The decision cannot pass with a block. Time out procedures may be considered.
- There may have to be confidential discussion time.
- The consensus process should be explained to any members not familiar with it.
There will normally be one formal warning before exclusion. A formal warning is a serious matter. In serious cases the group may decide to exclude an individual without warning. Any formal warning or exclusion will be minuted.