Ambulance services have delivered significant improvements to the standard of clinical care and services to patients over recent years. Patient experiences of 999 emergency services are consistently positive with patients having a high level of trust and confidence in ambulance staff who attend to them. Demand continues to rise year on year on year, this may be due to the ease with which people can access 999, a reluctance to use alternatives and possibly due to the confusing array of alternative offerings. This rising demand poses challenges in terms of achieving current response time targets and appropriate clinical care.
Paramedics continue to develop from their historical role of delivering first aid and transportation to hospital, towards a greater emphasis on decision-making, treatment and referral. This increase in clinical capability has led to the realisation that paramedics can make a fundamental contribution to unscheduled and urgent care and this was recognised by the end of Phase 1 “Urgent and emergency care review – transforming urgent and emergency care services in England.”
There is significant potential for further development of the paramedic role to enable an enhanced clinical service for the benefit of patients. The future approach should be towards a professionalised paramedic workforce with enhanced clinical capabilities, clinical leadership and clinical decision making skills, to work autonomously with the support and recognition from other professional colleagues.
