LNAA SPEAKS AT LONDON TRAUMA CONFERENCE
Erica Ley, Senior HEMS Paramedic at LNAA was invited to talk at the London Trauma Conference held earlier this month. Focussing on Advanced Paramedic Roles, Erica explained what each role delivers, the challenges facing paramedics and international role models that could be adopted in the future.
The London Trauma Conference hosts some of the world’s pioneers in their respective fields, with a focus on sharing news and developments from all corners of the globe in order to improve care. This year’s four day event began with the cardiac arrest symposium, followed by the pre-hospital care conference shared in partnership with Norwegian Ambulance Foundation. The latter two days looked at the in-hospital care of trauma patients.
Erica gives an account on the day:
“The current state of the healthcare sector in the UK necessitates a remodel of how we provide care across the boundaries of professions. The increased demand for ambulance services is largely driven by urgent care needs. Therefore, commissioners are increasingly looking towards ambulance trusts to help to manage this demand, resulting in a move away from a traditional response model to service models that differentiate more effectively between emergency care needs and urgent care needs.
The public expect a highly qualified medical professional to deliver their care when they dial 999. The past two decades have seen the transition into higher education as the main pathway into the paramedic profession. During this period, paramedics have further developed their knowledge and clinical expertise to be capable and competent in providing care in a wide range of primary, urgent, unscheduled, emergency and critical care settings, at an advanced level, across the four pillars of clinical practice, education, leadership and management and research.
In the UK ambulance services are commissioned and funded to achieve certain objectives. Very few of these objectives are based on the requirement to provide the highest level of critical care. This shortfall is provided mainly by charities that raise funds to allow the delivery of prehospital critical care in their specific region. So there is a need to review how care is provided to patients to ensure that the right care is getting to the right patient at the right time, in the right place.
A key driver for the implementation of advanced clinical practice is to enable practitioners to practise to their full potential and to optimise their contribution to meeting population needs through different models of service delivery and multidisciplinary working.
Paramedics have extensively developed and expanded their scope of practice across the clinical pillar, with ongoing career and employment opportunities continuing.
The governance of advanced clinical practice roles is vital to their success.”
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