A coroner is calling on the Home Office to allow paramedics to use a wider range of painkillers which they are currently barred from using while mountain rescue teams and the military are not.

After hearing that ambulance officers were frustrated at the delay, with talks having gone on for at least five years, Kate Robertson, senior coroner for North West Wales, is to issue a Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) report.

Her decision came at the end of an inquest in Caernarfon into the death of 52-year-old Jane Walker, who was seriously injured when a jet-ski collided with a Rigid Inflatable boat (RIB) in which she was a passenger.

The collision occurred on the Menai Strait, between Anglesey and the mainland, in August 2020, and at an earlier hearing evidence was given of how the jet-ski, ridden by a girl of 17, had been jumping across the wake of the RIB.

MOST READ:

Prize draw launched for RNLI: Winner to bring down chimney at Anglesey Aluminium site

LOOK: Environmental overhaul at Eryri tourist attraction completed

Plans for homes behind Anglesey village post office approved despite local objections

It was so close that when the RIB’s driver altered course the personal watercraft ran into the side of it.

Mrs Walker, from Cheadle, Staffordshire, was thrown sideways and although the only injury immediately visible was a broken arm she suffered internal injuries to her head, spinal cord and chest.

The inquest was adjourned last year after Mrs Walker’s husband Kevin raised concern about her treatment and handling by ambulance crews.

She was given morphine to relieve the pain and Mr Walker said he believed that the drug had suppressed her respiratory system, especially as she had a collapsed lung.

“I’m convinced that’s when she died,” he told the hearing.

The coroner adjourned the inquest at that stage for further investigation and at today’s hearing the witnesses included paramedic Robert Lloyd, who said he gave Mrs Walker 5 millilitres of morphine to relieve the pain in her arm and seemed to be effective.

She later became unresponsive and was taken to Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor, where she died.

Dr Jonathan Whelan, assistant medical director with the Welsh Ambulance Services, and independent expert Mark Faulkner from the London Ambulance Service, both said that it had been correct to administer morphine in the circumstances.

They explained that the only other analgesics available to paramedics were paracetamol and entonox – gas and air – though medications not available to them under Home Office rules are faster acting.

“Morphine was the only realistic option,” said Dr Whelan.

He told the Coroner that talks about freeing the use of the other drugs had been ongoing for five years.

“It is very frustrating,” he said.

“It’s bizarre that they can be used by non-medically qualified mountain rescue teams and the military,” commented Mr Faulkner.

“On balance, I think the injuries would have been fatal irrespective of any medical intervention,” he added.

Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers, who had previously said he couldn’t exclude the potential effect of the painkiller, said today: “Having heard the evidence I quite clearly take the view that it did not play any part in Mrs Walker’s death.”

In response to Mr Walker’s criticism of the way his wife was transferred from the RIB on the slipway to the ambulance, both experts described the circumstances as “challenging” and that speed was vital.

Recording a conclusion of accidental death, Ms Robertson said that as well as issuing a PFD report to the Home Office and would be contacting Isle of Anglesey County Council to check was steps had been taken and were to be taken about its management of the Menai Strait.