MILITARY PHARMACY AND MEDICINE

© Military Pharmacy and Medicine • 2012 • 4 • 55 – 563) By combining education with training (e.g.by holding meetings), they promote evidencebased clinical information across the wholerange of clinical services and encourageprofessional culture.4) They are professional leaders capableof incorporating conclusions regardingpatients’ condition with national healthcaresystem guidelines and collaborationwith various organizations, includingDepartment of Health, Health PromotionCouncil, Quality Assessment Agency or theCommission for Health.Consultant Paramedics may specialize in anybranch of clinical care, in particular in:——emergency pre-hospital and hospital care——(including emergency medicine);——critical and unscheduled medical care;——ground and air rescue operations, typically——provided by ambulance personnel.In either branch, paramedic consultants shouldbe involved in the development of standards forthe functioning of rescue services.The initial concept of emergency servicesincluded prompt response to emergencies, deliveryof first medical aid and transportation ofpatients to hospitals.Dorota Kołodziej, Radosław Ziemba: The role of paramedics in British emergency …Pre-hospital care in serious ailmentsand injuries in the UKPatients with serious ailments or injuries areconsidered a priori as requiring transportation tohospital (for further treatment).Ambulance care is available at telephone numbers999 or 112.After determination of the accident location,ambulances are notified by short wave radio ormobile phones from the Emergency NotificationCentre (ENC). Many ambulances are equippedwith geolocation systems allowing the dispatchersto identify units (mostly ground units) closestto the accident site.Digital terminals are also used to record regularambulance tasks, such as times of departure toand return from the accident site or the hospital,thus reducing the load on the radio band, whichis required for transmission of other data.The calls are classified into three categories:——“A” — if the condition may be life-threatening;——“B” — if the condition is serious, but not immediatelylife-threatening;——“C” — if the condition is neither serious, norlife-threatening.Over recent 25 years, this role has changed dramaticallyand now includes pre-hospital care,oftentimes requiring advanced clinical skills.Current requirements oblige paramedics toconstantly improve their skills which elevatesrequired educational level to academic levels.The clinical rescue personnel may be dividedinto medical care assistants, technicians andparamedics. Most ambulance personnel starttheir work as assistants, later on being trainedto be technicians. After another twelve monthsof practice they may start training to acquire theparamedic degree.After this training, they may be registered asparamedics.The existing training curriculum is verified viaEdexcel. The system encompasses data frompractical training and academic-level education.http://military.isl-journals.comThe category is determined by the Advanced MedicalPriority Determination System (AMPDS)used by the dispatchers to receive alarm calls.The British government has defined standards forambulance services. According to these standards:1) 75% of category A calls should be receivedand provided for within 8 minutes afterdetermination of accident site;2) 95% of category B and C calls should be providedfor within 14 minutes in urban areasand 19 minutes in non-urban areas (urbanareas are defined as areas with populationdensity of more than 2.5 person/acre).The personnel of call-receiving ambulances consistsusually of paramedics and technicians. Thedecision to mobilize a particular team is mateby senior dispatcher who has to have skills butdoes not have to have experience in deliveringfirst pre-hospital care (this role is not performedby physicians).55