Episode 1: First Aid Unboxed

Episode 1: First Aid Unboxed

Podcast Transcript

Introduction

Mark:

Welcome to the first episode of a brand new podcast. This is First Aid Unboxed with Louise Madeley from Madeley’s First Aid. Tell me about yourself and tell me about Madeley’s First Aid.

Louise’s Background and Early NHS Career

Louise:

Well, I come from a medical background, spent 30 years in the NHS. I started off as a nurse in neuroscience. So I qualified late 90s.

First Role: Paddington Rail Disaster

My very first role was the Paddington Rail Disaster, actually. I was doing CPR training upstairs in UCLH in London. And suddenly all the bleeps went off with the recess officers.

Next thing I know, I’m downstairs, and it was the Paddington Rail Disaster. And that was actually day two of being qualified. So that was my introduction to nursing, so to speak, after I’d done my degree.

Mark:

That’s an interesting introduction. So you were literally in at the deep end straight away.

Louise:

In every sense, yeah.

Moving Into Neuroscience and Intensive Care

Mark:

And then where did you move on after that? What was the development of your career after that?

Louise:

Well, I was very interested in neuroscience. Lots of reasons behind it, but the brain has always fascinated me. And I started to…

I was doing a post-grad degree in neuroscience at UCLH and Queen Square, which is the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, where I was working, got my sister’s post and did that. And then decided I was actually a bit too specialist in that one area and wanted to go a bit more generalist. So I decided to go for acute and intensive care.

Transition to Intensive Care and Relocation to France

Louise:

So I was still at UCLH, but moved over to the big building, which is the new UCLH building, just after they’d built it, to a very large intensive care unit. And worked there for a few years until I moved to France for three years. Decided that London was a bit busy.

Bombs had gone off and all sorts of things. So decided to debunk to France for three years and worked in an inurgence out there, learned the language. Took about a year to learn the language and then went off to an inurgence to work there.

Basically a small A&E in a place called Montaubon, near Toulouse, and stayed there. In those days, you refreshed your pin, so to speak, every three years. Now it’s every year, similar to revalidating these days.

And needed to come back in order to do that. So was there for three years, came over, came back to do that and decided to stay, mainly due to my now husband. Met him and that was it.

Shropshire has been ever since.

Settling in Shropshire

Mark:

It’s always a man or a woman, isn’t it? Always why we end up living where we live.

Louise:

Yeah. I was actually in the middle of getting my visa ready to move to Canada. That was my plan.

To the French side of Canada was where I was heading. But yeah, the rest is history, as they say.

Mark:

So you moved to Shropshire.

Louise:

Yeah.

Mark:

And then where did you work when you first moved to Shropshire?

Working at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital

Louise:

Well, that was about 16 years ago now. I started working for a charity to begin with, just because I still had my PIN number and to decide what it was I wanted to do. And then started working in accident and emergency at the Royal Shrewsbury.

And did some bank shifts and locums elsewhere, that sort of thing. So most of my time then was in A&E at Shrewsbury.

Advanced Clinical Practice and Retirement

Mark:

And is that where you were when you finished working for the NHS or had you moved?

Louise:

No, no. I worked there, decided that I needed to do more study, I needed to do more. So I started doing my ACP training, which is an advanced clinical practitioner.

Started doing that at Birmingham University and medical school, and worked in the community for a while. And then decided to retire, basically. But as with everything, along came COVID for everybody.

So because I had worked in outreach, and I’d been a sister in ITU before, I redeployed myself back into ITU for COVID.

Mark:

So the COVID thing delayed your retirement, basically?

Louise:

It did a bit.

Mark:

Yeah, okay. But you’re now retired?

Louise:

I am now retired. I left.

Starting Madeley’s First Aid

Mark:

And I know that you’re now the person behind Madeley’s First Aid. Yes. Which is based in Much Wenlock in Shropshire. Tell me a little bit about that, why you started it and what you do.

Louise:

I’ve always had a passion for education, and not just, I’ve taught so many different people, from laypeople who have no medical training whatsoever, right up to sort of junior doctors and so on, in different areas, especially ITU, and mainly acute care, so medical emergencies, CPR, all that sort of thing. And was thinking, what is it that I actually want to do? And decided that first aid was a way to go.

And I absolutely love doing what I do. I like taking a subject that I’m so passionate about and breaking it down, making it accessible for everybody. Because everybody needs to know how to do CPR.

Breaking Down Barriers to CPR

And the stats are just ridiculous. 80% of cardiac arrests that occur are in the home. You know, it will be somebody’s loved one.

So everybody needs to know how to do it. And there are barriers as to why people don’t do it. And I totally get it, what I want to do is take those barriers away.

Because they’re inexcusable barriers. They don’t need to be there. They are there because of many different reasons, including the terminology that’s used.

Are we gonna get sued for doing it? Do I know exactly what it is that I’m doing? The statistics on the number of people who even though they’ve had a first aid training, still don’t feel confident to use a defib on somebody.

Education and Demystification

Go and grab a defib and use it in a live event is horrific. And they’ve already had training. And it’s not that they’re not getting good training, it’s just that they’re not having it broken down into terminology and language that everybody can use.

So I’m a huge fan of taking that information, breaking it and demystifying it in a nutshell, and taking the fear out of it, because there is nothing to be afraid of, doing any form of first aid, especially the most critical types, like cardiac arrest and CPR. It is just about your mind and how you think about it.

Awards and Validation

Mark:

As you say, it’s about demystifying. It’s about trying to get everybody to know as much as they can know that they may need it in an everyday situation. And I know you’re quite passionate about this as well. I know Madeley’s has won some awards as well. Tell me about that.

Louise:

Yeah, in May this year, I won the FSB New Startup Business of the Year Award, which was an utter privilege and a huge honour. I wasn’t expecting it. I must admit, I was just sitting there, and suddenly I heard my name, and my husband sort of nudged me to say, you better move.

Mark:

That’s you. Go on, up you go.

Louise:

Yeah.

Mark:

And do you feel that validates what you do as well? And the fact that it’s not just about the business, this is about the message as well.

Louise:

Yeah, it’s more about the message than anything else. It’s about educating other people. And if we can change the statistics that are as poor as they are, then I’ve done my job.

Introducing First Aid Unboxed Podcast

Mark:

So the First Aid Unboxed podcast, what are we going to get when we start these podcasts on the first actual official episode? It is going to be Wednesday the 4th of October. That’s when it will be available to everybody.

Plumbing, Electrics, and Mechanics Analogy

And in that one, we’re going to be talking about plumbing, electrics, and mechanics. And this is Louise’s little, how can I describe it? The way she describes the way the body works.

So what can we expect in the podcasts that we’re going to be doing?

Louise:

What I do is I see the body, when it comes to first aid, as having three systems. So you’ve got your plumbing, your electrics, and your mechanics. And most of first aid can go down to one of those, some to two.

So your plumbing is, if anybody knows how to use a boiler, or what a boiler does, it’s got a pump, it’s got a system with water in it, and it pumps that water around the system. So when you’re talking about something like a heart attack, this is your plumbing. This is when your plumbing goes wrong.

You have a blockage in your plumbing. And that, as a result, can cause a cardiac arrest. A cardiac arrest is the electric system.

So when that circuit goes into chaos or it stops functioning for any reason, then it will stop the heart from working. And we’ll go into more detail about how that can happen. But in a nutshell, it will then stop the heart from working.

You have a cardiac arrest. It goes into a funny rhythm. And that’s when you need CPR.

Heart Attack vs. Cardiac Arrest

It is not the same as a heart attack. Heart attack is when you have a blockage in your plumbing. One can lead to the other, but they are not the same thing.

One you can have, for example, a heart attack, you could have symptoms of that for many hours, many days sometimes. A cardiac arrest, you are on the floor immediately. Instantly.

You need that defib there, you need CPR instantly. A heart attack, very different. You need 999, you need the ambulance there, 112, immediately or as quickly as possible.

But it’s not a cardiac arrest. The heart has not stopped working. It’s dysfunctional, not stopped working.

Mark:

That’s interesting because in my head, those two things are the same thing, and they’re obviously not. They’re completely different. They’re just both the heart, but they’re different issues with the heart. One’s plumbing, one’s electrical. And then mechanics?

Louise:

Mechanics, you’re talking about joints, for example. So we’re talking about injuries to the body, as much as anything. Not so much bleeding.

Bleeding again is down to plumbing. You have a leak in your system, hence it is bleeding out. What do you do to stop that happening?

That in a nutshell is what bleeding is about. Mechanics is more injuries. So if you’ve broken a bone, if you’ve done something to your mechanical being, and the way that your mechanics function, that is an injury. So yeah, three different systems that I tend to talk about.

Podcast Launch and Content Outline

Mark:

So our first proper episode is going to be on the 4th of October. And in that episode, Louise is going to explain a lot more about the plumbing, the mechanics, and the electric system, and how they all fit together, and demystifying the whole thing, and how your body works. Literally, we’re going to unbox the way your body works.

And then subsequent episodes will tell you how you can repair it when it’s all gone wrong. That’s what we’re going to be doing. When I asked you about doing these podcasts, you said it was very much about you really want people to know how to deal with a situation when it occurs.

Tell me more about that, and the way you campaign to get that message out there.

Louise:

Yeah, perfect example is, I have, instead of doing a business card, I’ve done a CPR card. So it’s a business card-sized piece of card, basically. And instead of giving out a business card, it is exactly what you need to do in the event of needing to do CPR.

CPR Card and Chain of Survival

So somebody’s had a cardiac arrest, they’re on the floor, what do you do? And it literally just has, I think it’s five bullet points of call emergency services. It’s really the chain of survival that’s required in order to get that person treated as quickly as possible.

So how to deliver CPR, when to get the defib, and it just breaks it down into very small, bite-sized, so you can just stick it on the floor and read it. A bit like the advice leaflet that you would get in a first aid box, but more bullet-pointed, if you like. It’s just five simple steps of what you need to do.

Mark:

Similar to the one we see on the television quite a lot about, if you think someone’s having a stroke, it’s that FAST thing, isn’t it?

Louise:

Yeah.

Mark:

So it’s similar to that. Where these are the things you need to do immediately.

Louise:

Yes.

Cardiac Arrest Statistics and Urgency

Mark:

And survival rates, I assume, increase.

Louise:

Just to give you some idea of statistics, you’re looking at up to 80,000 people, this is on average, suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in this country. That’s 200 people every day. So there’s a fair likelihood that you could well, in your lifetime, come across somebody who’s had a cardiac arrest.

80% of those happen at home. So again, it increases the likelihood that it could be one of your loved ones that that happens to. Every minute without CPR and defib reduces the chance of survival by 10%.

Now you’ve already got a situation where only one in 10 people will survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. So that’s 10% of people that have one that are likely to survive. So for every minute, you’re losing that 10% of that 10%, if that makes sense.

Mark:

Yes.

Louise:

You need to get on that chest immediately. Every minute, you are reducing that person’s chance of survival.

Final Thoughts and Contact Details

Mark:

And what we’ll be doing in the episode about that is Louise walking us through the process, and what you need to do to increase those percentages. And increase the survival rates.

Louise:

Yeah.

Mark:

And that’s the general idea of the podcast, really. It’s a first aid podcast. Although we’re going to be doing them in a particular order, you can dip in and out of whichever episode is relevant to you, or you feel is relevant to you.

Louise:

Absolutely.

Mark:

It will build into a course basically for a basic first aid in the home or in the workplace or whatever.

Louise:

Absolutely.

Mark:

So that’s basically what we’re going to be doing. As I said, it all starts on Wednesday the 4th of October. It’s First Aid Unboxed with Louise Madeley from Madeley’s First Aid.

How to Get in Touch

If you do want more information, what’s the email address if people need to get in contact with you?

Louise:

They can contact me through inquiries at madeleysfirstaidplus.co.uk, or on the website, it’s madeleysfirstaidplus.co.uk.

Mark:

And as I said, we’ll be back with the first proper episode on the 4th of October. Louise will be going into more detail about the way the plumbing, the electrics, and the mechanics all fit together to help your body work properly. Until then, stay healthy.

Next Episode

Episode 2: Plumbing, Electrics and Mechanics