Solutions to urgent and emergency care

The report, Ripping off the sticking plaster, has been written by commissioners and providers in England and our Chief Executive, Dr Anthony Marsh, is part of the forum. The report states that traditional paramedic training has been focussed on dealing with life-threatening emergencies but “expectations, behaviours and skills of the workforce need to change, so that staff are comfortable treating and leaving more people at home or managing them in the community.”

EEAST already has a very good record of treating patients at home, with conveyance rates being some of the lowest in the country.

Director of Patient Safety and Clinical Standards, John Martin, said: “We welcome the report and support the developments suggested for how we treat patients. It emphasises again the need to ensure paramedics are trained and educated to treat the wide spectrum of patients we encounter. As a Trust, we are now developing a diploma for our student paramedics and degree programmes with five partner universities and we are also piloting a specialist paramedic programme, all of which will contribute to treating patients more effectively.”

A range of outcome-based indicators should also be developed, according to the report, which will allow ambulance services’ performance to be assessed on more than just response time targets.

It states that NHS England and Health Education England should also “do more to support the development of ambulance services as out-of-hospital providers by ensuring the workforce is properly equipped to play its role.”

The report The full report is available on the NHS Confederation website.