Beginning in November 2022 and running until January 2023, Canopy Medical Services provided event medical cover teams for seasonal ice-skating rinks at three major sites around London:
- Westfield Shopping Centre
- The Queen’s House, Greenwich
- Hampton Court Palace
In total we provided 52 days of cover over the busy Christmas period,
looking after a total of 182,201 skaters.
All ice rink staffing was provided by our client, Off To Work, in partnership with Arena, a global turnkey events provider.
Planning the event medical cover
As you can imagine from the numbers of people involved, together with the risks associated with beginners on ice skates, we had to be well prepared to provide an efficient service. Major injury was unlikely, but volume of incidents was our major challenge.
For this reason, in planning the event, we advised our client to go beyond the advice given in the Purple Guide, to staff the event with people qualified to FREC4 level (emergency care assistant). At this level, staff are not able to medically discharge patients or administer pain relief medications which would likely be necessary to stabilise patients to the point where they could leave the site.
We recommended an ambulance technician be always on site, to be able to complete these tasks, with a paramedic on call for phone triage and remote support.
By having that more experienced person it meant that we could safely staff the event cost-effectively, with just one team member at each site. This would not have been possible with less-qualified staff.
The range of incidents we dealt with
As you can see from the chart below the type of injuries we had to deal with were varied, but with a number having potential impact to the head, back and spine, careful assessment was extremely important.
Event outcomes
We’re pleased to say that the events across all sites this year were a great success, and the numbers support this assessment. The total number of incidents across all sites represented just 0.27% of the total number of skaters.
Of the incidents we were required to deal with:
- 491 total incidents requiring treatment
- 63.7% of incidents (313 of 491) were managed with no NHS impact
- Only 1.8% of incidents required ambulance attendance
What we hope these numbers demonstrate is the value of having the right level of experience in the medical cover of your event.
Inexperienced, or insufficiently qualified, staff will often be the cause of incorrect assessment or just a lack of confidence in diagnosis. In that event there is a tendency to cause more pressure on the NHS by over-referral, just to be on the safe side. Canopy’s dedicated and experienced team were able to ensure the vast majority of patients were able to remain at the event, or head home under their own steam.
Mission successful for the Canopy team
We’re delighted that Off to Work and Arena had such a successful 2022/23 skating season and appreciative of their recognition in the part our team played, from the feedback we received:
“For the duration of the event and the lead up, the excellence in communication, delivery, professionalism and care was exceptional. The service provided on site as well as the vital support behind the ‘on the ground team’ provided invaluable.Canopy Medical Services Ltd enabled and facilitated the rink operations team to work in the knowledge that the medical support was in place and the clients care and safety were at the foremost of the operations, dealing with all incidents efficiently with the wealth of knowledge, experience and the highest standards of equipment and care.”
Head of Sports, Stadia and Cultural Events – Off to Work