Glossary
| Term | Acronym | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Accident and emergency | A&E | A medical treatment facility specialising in acute care of patients who present without prior appointment, either by their own means or by ambulance. The emergency department is usually found in a hospital or other primary care centre. |
| Ambulance (clinical) quality indicators | ACQIs | A set of national measures to benchmark clinical quality against eleven indicators to improve quality and safety of patient care. |
| Antimicrobial | Medicines used to prevent and treat infections - often referred to as antibiotics | |
| Association of Ambulance Chief Executives | AACE | A central organisation that supports, coordinates and implements nationally agreed policy. |
| Blood pressure | BP | The pressure exerted by circulating blood upon the walls of blood vessels. One of the principal vital signs. |
| British Association for Immediate Care | BASICS | A charitable organisation who works in partnership with EEAST. |
| Cardiopulmonary resuscitation | CPR | An emergency procedure, performed in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person in cardiac arrest. |
| Care Quality Commission | CQC | The independent watchdog for healthcare in England. It assesses and reports on the quality and safety of services provided by the NHS and the independent healthcare sector, and works to improve services for patients and the public. |
| Category 1 | Cat 1 | National response time standard for 999 immediately life-threatening injuries and illnesses. |
| Category 1T | Cat 1T | National response time standard for 999 immediately life-threatening injuries and illnesses where the patient is transported. |
| Category 2 | Cat 2 | National response time standard for 999 emergency calls. |
| Category 3 | Cat 3 | National response time standard for urgent calls and in some instances where patients may be treated in-situ (e.g., their own home) or referred to a different pathway of care. |
| Category 4 | Cat 4T | National response time standard for less urgent calls. In some instances, patients may be given advice over the phone or referred to another service such as a GP or pharmacist. |
| Chief Executive Officer | CEO | The position of the most senior officer, executive, or administrator in charge of managing an organisation. |
| Clinical Audit | - | A process for measuring the level of care given against a set of standards to drive improvement. |
| Clinical Best Practice Group | CBPG | A group within EEAST that has responsibility for identifying and monitoring best clinical practice. |
| Commissioning | The processes which local authorities and clinical commissioning groups undertake to make sure that services funded by them meet the needs of the patient. | |
| Commissioning for Quality and Innovation programme | CQuIN | The incorporation of quality metrics within quality and innovation three-year contracts. Full reimbursement of activity is made upon delivery of quality initiatives. |
| Community Engagement Group | CEG | A group within EEAST in place to ensure that views of patients and their representatives can be used to improve our services. |
| Community First Responders | CFR | Teams of volunteers who are trained by the ambulance service to a nationally recognised level and provide lifesaving treatment to people in their communities. |
| Continuous Improvement Assurance Framework | CIAF | EEASTs internal system for monitoring improvements within their service |
| Continuing Professional Development | CPD | Ongoing personal and professional development undertaken by clinicians |
| Data Protection Act | DPA | United Kingdom Act of Parliament which updates data protection laws in the UK. |
| Data Security Protection Toolkit | DSPT | An online system which allows NHS organisations and partners to assess themselves against NHS Digital information standards. |
| Department of Health and Social Care | DHSC | A department of the Government with responsibility for government policy for health and social care matters and for the NHS in England along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish governments. |
| Disability Real Action Group of Norfolk | D.R.A.G.O.NS | A group of young people with disabilities that are looking to make sure that SEND opportunities, in Norfolk, are accessible and that young people are enjoying their services. |
| Duty of Candour | DoC | Regulation 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 to ensure that providers are open and transparent with people who use services or their representatives. |
| East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust | EEAST | Ambulance service which operates in the east of England. |
| Easyread | - | An accessible format which can be used by people with learning difficulties. |
| Electrocardiography | ECG | An ECG is a test used to measure the electrical activity of the heart. |
| Electronic patient care record | ePCR | A patient care record which is in electronic format. |
| Emergency operations centre | EOC | Control centre for managing call receipt, triage and dispatch functions. |
| Equality and Human Rights Commission | EHRC | Mandated body in place to challenge discrimination and to protect and promote human rights. |
| Face, Arm, Speech, Time | FAST | A simple test to help people recognise the signs of stroke and understand the importance of emergency treatment. |
| Fit for the Future | FFF | Part of the NHS Long Term Plan to ensure that health services are fit for the future |
| Freedom to Speak Up | FTSU | A national initiative to apply measures to enable staff to speak out about patient safety and other concerns confidentially or anonymously. |
| Friends and Family Test | FFT | A feedback tool that anyone can use to give quick, anonymous feedback to providers of NHS services. |
| General practitioner | GP | A medical practitioner who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education to patients. |
| Glasgow Coma Scale | GCS | A clinical scale used to reliably measure a person's level of consciousness. |
| Glyceryl trinitrate | GTN | Drug for heart disease patients to dilate the blood vessels. Delivered as a spray or in tablet form. |
| Hazardous Area Response Team | HART | Specialist ambulance unit that provides medical care to patients in hazardous or hot environments. They utilise special vehicles and equipment. |
| Health and Social Care Act | HSCA | An Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provides for the most extensive reorganisation of the structure of the National Health Service in England to date. It removed responsibility for the health of citizens from the Secretary of State for Health, which the post had carried since the inception of the NHS in 1948. |
| Health overview and scrutiny committee | HOSC | Provides external assessment of any NHS consultation process giving local assurance that the business cases for any future NHS developments are robust. |
| Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership | HQIP | An independent organisation to promote quality in healthcare, and in particular to increase the impact that clinical audit has on healthcare quality improvement. |
| Healthwatch | - | An independent national body with the power to monitor the NHS and to refer patients concerns to a wide range of authorities. It represents the interests of patients as consumers, strategic commissioning, pursues and refers patient complaints and contributes to national public debate on the NHS. |
| Hear and treat | - | Over-the-telephone advice that callers who do not have serious or life-threatening conditions receive from an ambulance service after calling 999. |
| Information Governance Group | IGG | A group within EEAST in place to ensure that all information systems and processes comply with the Data Protection Act. |
| Integrated Care Board | ICB | NHS organisations set up with responsibility to organise and oversee the delivery of NHS and social care services in England. |
| Integrated Care System | ICS | Partnerships between the organisations that meet health and care needs across an area, to coordinate services and to plan in a way that improves population health and reduces inequalities between different groups. |
| Integrated Performance Report | IPR | Dashboard used within EEAST that provides information against set key metrics. |
| Joint Royal College Ambulance Liaison Committee | JRCALC | Expert committee responsible for the production of clinical guidelines for ambulance services in the UK |
| Key Line of Enquiry | KLOE | Five key questions, which CQC inspectors use to help establish whether a service is providing the high standard of care expected of them. |
| Key performance indicator | KPI | Clear, comparative gauge for CCGs, boards, local authorities, patients and the public to monitor about the quality of health services commissioned by CCGs and the associated health outcomes. |
| Learning from Deaths | LfD | National guidance for NHS trusts on working with bereaved families and carers. It advises trusts on how they should support, communicate and engage with families following a death of someone in their care. |
| Local authority | - | An organisation that is officially responsible for all the public services and facilities in a particular area. |
| Metrics | - | Set of ways of quantitatively and periodically measuring performance. |
| Mobile Stroke Unit | MSU | An ambulance equipped with a scanner and other diagnostic tools to enable the rapid diagnosis and treatment of a stroke prior to taking the patient to hospital. |
| Myocardial infarction | MI | Clinical term for a heart attack. |
| National Early Warning Score | NEWS2 | A simple aggregate scoring system in which a score is allocated to physiological measurements. |
| National Guardians Office | NGO | The organisation who works to make speaking up become business as usual to effect cultural change in the NHS. |
| National Health Service | NHS | The publicly funded healthcare system of England. It is the largest and the oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world. |
| National Institute for Health and Care Excellence | NICE | A professional body that provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care. |
| National Institute for Health Research | NIHR | Organisation that funds health and care research in the United Kingdom. |
| National Patient Safety Alert | NPSA | Issued by NHS Improvement to rapidly warn the healthcare system of risks. |
| National Performance Advisory Group | NPAG | Self funding NHS organisation that provides a number of services to support NHS organisations |
| National Quality Board | NQB | Provides advice, recommendations and endorsement on matters relating to quality, and acts as a collective to influence, drive and ensure system alignment of quality programmes and initiatives. |
| National Reporting and Learning Service | NRLS | A central database of patient safety incident reports. |
| National staff survey | - | A way of ensuring that the views of staff working in the NHS inform local improvements and input in to local and national assessments of quality, safety, and delivery of the NHS Constitution. |
| NHS Digital | NHSD | The national information and technology partner to the health and care system. |
| NHS England and NHS Improvement | NHSE&I | The lead body for the National Health Service in England. |
| Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service | NEPTS | Provides transport to and from premises providing NHS healthcare and between NHS healthcare providers. This is also known as scheduled transport or non-emergency service. |
| Norfolk and Norwich SEND Association | NANSA | A registered charity dedicated to improving the lives of people in Norfolk with disabilities and special educational needs. |
| Outcome from out-ofHospital Cardiac Arrest | OHCA | A prospective study, collecting information on all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK. |
| Oxygen saturation | SpO2 | Term referring to the fraction of oxygen within the haemoglobin levels. A normal level would range between 95-97%. |
| Pandemic | - | A disease that exists in almost all of an area or in almost all of a group of people. |
| Paramedic | - | A registered healthcare professional, working predominantly in the pre-hospital and out-of-hospital environment. |
| Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman | PHSO | A legal organisation who make final decisions on complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS in England and UK government departments and other UK public organisations. |
| Patient Advice and Liaisons Service | PALS | PALS queries are processed by the Patient Services team who are the first point of contact for enquiries from the public or other healthcare organisations. |
| Patient care record | PCR | All NHS providers are required to record the care given to a patient on a patient care record. |
| Patient Facing Staff Hours | PFSH | A term used to describe resources available for patient care. |
| Patient Group Directive | PGD | Medico-legal documents in the U.K. National Health Service that permit the supply of prescription-only medicines to groups of patients, without individual prescriptions. |
| Patient Safety and Experience Group | PSEG | A group within EEAST in place to ensure that incidents and patient feedback are used to reduce risks and improve our services and patients experiences. |
| Patient safety incident | PSI | Any unintended or unexpected incident which could have (or did) lead to harm for one or more patients receiving NHS care. |
| Patient Safety Incident Response Framework | PSIRF | An NHS process to further improve patient safety. |
| Payment by results | - | The payment system in England under which commissioners pay healthcare providers for each patient seen or treated, taking into account the complexity of the patients healthcare needs. |
| Primary care | - | Out-of-hospital health services that play a central role in the local community. |
| Primary percutaneous coronary intervention | PPCI | Commonly known as coronary angioplasty or simply angioplasty, is a therapeutic procedure to treat the narrowed coronary arteries of the heart found in coronary heart disease. |
| Public Health England | PHE | An executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care that exists to protect and improve the nations health and wellbeing. |
| Quality Governance Committee | QGC | An EEAST committee which has authority from the Trust Board to be assured that progress is being made on the assurance processes for clinical effectiveness, patient safety and patient experience. |
| Quarter 1 (2,3,4) | Q1 (2,3,4) | Financial year (1st April - 31st March) quarter indicator. |
| Reachdeck Toolbar | - | System to improve the accessibility, readability and reach of online content. |
| Research Ethics Committee | REC | Responsible for the ethical conduct of research studies designed to increase understanding of workplace factors that contribute to ill-health and workplace accidents. |
| Return of spontaneous circulation | ROSC | The resumption of sustained perfusing cardiac activity associated with significant respiratory effort after cardiac arrest. |
| Royal National Institute of Blind People | RNIB | One of the UKs leading sight loss charities and the largest community of blind and partially sighted people. |
| Scheduled transport service | STS | A non-emergency service provided to patients who are unable to convey themselves for outpatients appointments. This is also sometimes known as Patient Transport Service or non-emergency service. |
| See and treat | - | Patients who are treated at home by ambulance staff and do not require taking to a hospital or other care centre. |
| Sepsis | - | A life-threatening condition that arises when the bodys response to an infection injures its own tissues and organs. Sepsis leads to shock, multiple organ failure and death especially if not recognised early and treated promptly. |
| Serious Incident | SI | An event or circumstance that could have resulted, or did result, in unnecessary damage, loss or harm such as physical or mental injury to a patient, staff, visitors or members of the public. |
| Service user | - | Anyone who uses, requests, applies for or benefits from health or local authority services. |
| Short Message/Messaging Service | SMS | A text messaging service within most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. |
| Social Worker | - | A registered professional who supports adults, children, families and communities to improve their lives. |
| Special Educational Need and/or Disability | SEND | A term used if a child or young person has a significantly greater difficulty in learning that the majority of others of the same age or has a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions. |
| Stakeholders | - | Anyone with an interest in the way services are delivered including service users, carers, patients, service providers, staff, health professionals and partner organisations, councils and other community or voluntary groups. |
| Standard Operating Procedure | SOP | EEAST term for a process for staff to follow. |
| ST-elevation myocardial infarction | STEMI | A heart attack recognised by characteristics on an ECG. |
| STEMI care bundle | - | A set of interventions that when used together significantly improve patient outcomes for a heart attack. |
| Strategy | - | A plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim. |
| Stroke | TIA | A stroke happens when the blood supply to the brain is disturbed. |
| Stroke diagnostic bundle | SCB | A set of assessments that when applied provide information indicating as to whether a stroke has occurred. |
| Summary Care Record | SCR | An electronic record of important patient information, created from GP medical records which can be seen and used by authorised staff in other areas of the health and care system involved in the patient's direct care. |
| The Ambulance Staff Charity | TASC | A registered charity who provide a range of services to support the mental health, physical rehabilitation, and financial wellbeing of the UKs ambulance staff, their family members, students, and ambulance service volunteers. |
| Time to Lead | - | NHS framework for the delivery of clinical and non-clinical leadership |
| Tranexamic Acid | TXA | A medication used to treat or prevent excessive blood loss. |
| United Kingdom | UK | The United Kingdom is the official name for the country consisting of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. |
| Utstein | - | The Utstein Style is a set of guidelines for uniform reporting of cardiac arrest. The Utstein Style was first proposed for emergency medical services in 1991. |
| 90th centile | - | the value of a variable such that 90% of the relevant data is below that value. |
