Location, location, location?

Five departments in the South West replied to a survey to see if they followed the CEM guidelines about having immediate availability of antidotes to a variety of poisoning agents.

At each of the six chosen sites (one did not take part), questionnaires for junior doctors, seniors and nursing staff were administered, with response rates of 75% (40/53) for senior nurses, 74% for consultants (23/31 with one part-unanswered survey) and 91% (31/34) for middle grade doctors.

The questions asked if they knew were the antidotes were, if not how to get hold of them, and how long it would take to get them (eg, within 1 h, 1–2 or more and if this differed depending on the time of day they were needed).

Results are revealing and should lead the reader to repeat this work in their own department as a worthy exercise! Do you know where the dicobalt edetate or sodium thiosulphate is kept, or how to get hold of more stock?

Is it good to be cold?

Therapeutic hypothermia is recognised …