Table 3.

Time

By the time we get a patient onto a vehicle, we tend to do obs en route to hospital … then by the time we fill in the paperwork you might have a few minutes for a bit nicety with the relative and the patient. But you haven’t got a great deal of time to start explaining a trial or receiving permission to do something. (UK-FG6)

We’re pre-hospital. So decisions have to be made in a pretty expeditious manner. Ruling out if a patient is critical or non-critical supersedes everything else. (US-FS2)

we were in the shadow of the hospital, literally, the shadow of the hospital was on top of the building that we were inside of. So we had to be quick, you know. (US-FS6)

‘Why are we doing this when we can have the patient at the hospital and they could be receiving the actual medication rather than a placebo in the field where it may not change the outcome of the patient one way or another?’ So guys were apprehensive of being in a study. Let’s either do something that’s going to benefit a patient or not do it all. (US-FS5)

For paramedics a minute feels like an hour. (Fieldnote from discussion after interviews)