I loved this!!! What a fantastic insight to our NHS and their hard work, often unrewarded. Very honest and well written. If you love watching medical documentaries you will thoroughly enjoy this and I would highly recommend it!!!!

Being a sucker for these medical books I was looking forward to this one, and while not quite as detailed in how an emergency service works it was still a good read, and once more puts into perspective what a tough job actually is.

I enjoyed Jake Jones’s biographical view of life as a paramedic, not only tracking through the stories of individual episodes he has attended over the years, but interspersing this with his own story and personal motivations to do the job, and the challenges that he faces as an individual.

As ever, we don’t appreciate quite what the life of a paramedic involves, and how much resources are required to keep us all safe and healthy.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this book.

There are a few spoilers in this review.

Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a paramedic? Have you watched the TV programmes and documentaries, so you know what they do, what they are called to?

Well, think again.

Jake explains how he ended up being a paramedic (career change) and he initially struggles with his confidence when dealing with medical situations. However, this confidence grows and he deals with many different jobs - the majority he should not have been called to, some he is sent as other services (Mental Health mainly) have let the patient down. But sometimes, he is supposed to be their and he may get to save someone’s life.

Jake talks about the tragedy he endures as ‘part of the job’, briefly covers the physical toll the role plays on his (and colleagues) health.

And even though emergency service workers aren’t supposed to admit it, they do want to make a positive difference to lives.

There has been a bit of a spate of this sort of medical memoir coming out but this is the first I've seen from a paramedics point of view. Unlike many of the others, I found that this wasn't sensationalist and provided a really good insight to the job. Jake shows respect to all of his patients and highlights how hard paramedics work. It's a really quick read but definitely worthwhile.

Read and reviewed in exchange for a free copy from NetGalley. I really enjoy books of this genre, and this was no exception. It fitted into the general formula sharing interesting tales from the author's career, although I felt Jones' writing, whilst descriptive and setting the scene well, jumped around a bit too much and could be hard to follow.

‘Can You Hear Me’ by paramedic Jake Jones is obviously another offering from the large stable of medical musings which are having quite a moment with the public. Unlike some of its companions, this book doesn’t appear to focus sharply on NHS shortages and a system crumbling under pressure. However, this theme runs, mostly subtly, throughout as Jones takes us on a journey of paracetamol- prescribed ailments as well as the real emergencies that he has been trained to deal with. Time and again he is called out to help people who just need a little help or reassurance: the elderly and inform who live alone, fall and can’t move; the first-time parents who haven’t heard of Calpol; the virus-stricken individual who needs to get better NOW! And he’s not complaining. But, clearly, these should not the focus of an emergency service. They are, however, a reflection of the lack of neighbourliness and old-fashioned community apparent in some many places today.
Unlike some medical memoirs, Jake Jones does not cast himself in any sort of heroic light. Quite the reverse. He is just an ordinary bloke fed up with office life who decides on a career change. Some of his introspective musings about why he has taken this particular path are a little long-winded and occasionally ill-placed in the narrative. Nevertheless, this book does educate us on the life of a paramedic, reminding us of all the suffering they see, the abuse they withstand and the messiness of life – often quite literally! Jones’ use of humour is also well-judged. Paramedics are sometimes seen as mere outliers of the NHS and this account of their duties does much to rectify this perception. A thought-provoking read.
My thanks to NetGalley and Quercus Books for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I was very excited to read this book. I have loved other medical books, This Is Going To Hurt and The Language Of Kindness. I couldnt wait to get stuck in. As much as I enjoyed this book I felt it was very repetitive. There has been so much on the tv recently about ambulance services and how stretched they are. I dont feel like this book gave any extra insight into this. I didnt feel I learnt anything new. I am quite disappointed with this.

Can You Hear Me? is a collection of memoirs from paramedic Jake Jones during his time in the NHS ambulance service. As expected, it’s filled with a multitude of stories that cover the wide breadth of tasks paramedics do, from saving livings to telling people who to take paracetamol. It’s a critique on the misuse of a wonderful service, full of compassion, but also despondency at the amount of abuse such workers receive.

The real highlight for me while reading where the many stories scattered throughout that really highlighted the various foibles of human nature. From mental health issues, cardiac arrests and everything in between, paramedics deal with everything life throws at people and the different ways people react to these life pressures. They appear with blue flashing lights, guns blazing, deal with the mess and move onto the next. They inhibit such a small yet important time in a patient’s life, and I found this fascinating. The author details these events compassionately, while allowing the to reader see into the many thoughts that run through a paramedics head during a time of crisis.

Unfortunately I sometimes found the writing style a little messy and incredibly introspective, which didn’t lend ourself well to the overall tone of the book. Especially at the beginning, the author intersperses their career history with patient cases, disrupting the pace, and often meaning I’d loose track of what was happening. Thankfully, this seemed to resolve itself half way through the book although there’s still a lot of self reflection that I found to be overly done. I’ve also read a few memoirs in this genre (Blood, Sweat and Tea comes to mind) which I found to have a more charismatic and engaging writing style.

Some fascinating insights here, told with compassion and for thought, but a bit too introspective and not charismatic enough to hold my attention for very long.