In the UK, paramedics are usually the most senior ambulance service healthcare professionals that attend personal accidents and medical emergencies. Larger incidents, such a coach crash, may involve a hospital Director of Traumatology Services taking command of the situation. As highly skilled individuals in advanced life support techniques, paramedics are regulated by the Health Professions Council (HPC) to carry out many of the duties of a medical doctor working in a hospital A & E department.
Paramedic work involves assisting people whose independence to act or think may be seriously impaired, and who may present themselves with an overlying range of disabilities or health-related problems. A defining feature of paramedic care is that it is always available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with a focus on meeting people’s immediate emergency care needs. In addition, paramedics also provide critical care transportation services often as part of a team of health professionals.
One of the many misinterpretations regarding paramedics is that they are nurses in some way. Certainly paramedics receive education in many of the same areas as nurses such as medical terminology, anatomy, pharmacology, physiology, pathophysiology for example, but unlike nurses or other health care professionals, paramedics concentrate solely on emergency issues and become specialists in ‘out of hospital’ emergency medicine and advanced life support (ALS) techniques.
Many paramedics operate on their own, driving what is in effect a mobile emergency clinic. Others work as part of a bigger ambulance vehicle team which may comprise an Emergency Medical Technician I (EMT I) or Emergency Medical Technician II (EMT II). Of interest too is that many paramedics are now stationed away from the hospital, at an RV or Rendezvous Point as analysis by Ambulance Service managers has highlighted that certain accident or emergency ‘black-spots’ warrant having a paramedic stationed permanently in that locality. As a result you will nowadays see a fast response car, usually a Ford or Skoda Estate parked close by to the town centre of most larger UK cities. Some town centre paramedics even use a bicycle – a clever solution to crowded roads that means that the response time to the critical patient is significantly reduced.
On arriving at the scene of an emergency, paramedics are trained to examine, evaluate the patient’s condition and provide vital treatment using modern high-tech equipment for example, defibrillators (which restore the heart’s rhythm), spinal and traction splints, intravenous drips, oxygen and over 30 essential drugs.
It is widely believed that the origin of the word paramedic may have come from the Armed Forces, where highly trained medics were parachuted into emergency areas during the Second World War. The prefix ‘para’ is now taken to mean closely resembling or beside and ‘medic’ is a shortened form of medical doctor. So a paramedic works beside and/or resembles the medical doctor.
The change to the GPs contract in 2008 which led to almost every UK GP working in the NHS to contract out of evening and night time calls has increased the variety and workload of the paramedic. Typically working 12 hour shifts, paramedics will now be called to the scene of city centre medical emergencies, especially
- City centre medical emergencies, especially those resulting from street fights or alcoholic abuse
- Road traffic accidents (RTAs)
- Home medical emergencies, especially the elderly not able to get to hospital themselves
- Mountain Rescue, usually as part of a mountain rescue team or MRT
- Air Ambulance call out, again usually as part of a designated air ambulance team
- Sea Rescue alongside RNLI or RAF Rescue
- the untimely birth of a child
And soon fully qualified paramedics will form part of UK Armed Forces battle groups such as those currently operating in Afghanistan. The MOD have announced recently that they intend retraining and upgrading the skills of their Combat Medical Technicians to imitate civilian paramedic status.
And finally, at the softer end of their work spectrum, paramedics will often mentor school leavers in sixth form colleges, work on cruise liners alongside or replacing the ship’s doctor, or work in large scale industrial complexes such as oil drilling platforms.
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