Continuous Professional Development 2009
Your Opinion
Should all Paramedics be able to refer patients to other professional services without taking them to the ED
Continuous Professional Development
The College on line CPD system has now completed the awaited upgrade and is live on the website for your use. The work undertaken on the previous version has been transferred to your new records.
You will find a number of new and changed features, all of which are designed to improve your quality of CPD. The changes made will also make the provision for personal development planning as part of the system and presenting work to meet the standards of the HPC will be much easier for you.
The upgrade has been very carefully tested and refined; however like all of these things there is always the possibility that you may discover a bug that is new. If you should discover anything then please email the details to us.
We are very pleased with the upgrade and the College in partnership with the software house are always seeking ways to improve it. Should you have any suggestions then please post them on the CPD member forum.
A help manual will be produced as soon as possible for your assistance. In the meantime if you have any queries then please telephone 01332746356.
For those members of the college who might wish to move to an online CPD system can sign by logging into the home page and selecting the link Register for CPD
New Vacancy - Senior Health Care Professional / Emergency Care Practitioner
Click here for details
Health Professions Council ��,�" CPD Audit for Paramedics 2009
The HPC have produced a presentation to support you in meeting the requirements for submission of your CPD. If you would like to learn more please use the following link and select the play button on the top right hand side of the web page.
The HPC will be auditing CPD for Paramedics during this year. This is an important time for all registered Paramedics as the requirement to complete your CPD is linked to renewal of your registration. The HPC provide information on the CPD audit using the following link.
http://www.hpc-uk.org/registrants/cpd/
Tissue Donation Survey
Exploring
ambulance personnels' knowledge,beliefs,
attitudes and training about:Tissue Donation
The Faculty of Prehospital Emergency Care Research Unit is seeking the views of ambulance staff about tissue donation. We would like to hear from you if you are a
Paramedic
Emergency Medical Technician
Combat Medical Technician
Emergency Care Practitioner.
It is now usual practice for paramedics to pronounce death in adult patients and to sensitively offer relatives an opportunity to advocate the choices made in life by the deceased. The importance of tissue donation is paramount, life enhancing and, in some cases, life saving yet the referral of potential donors by paramedics is very rare. We would like to learn more about how often you engage in sudden death work in particular, about how you feel about breaking bad news to relatives and discussing tissue donation with them. This study explores how we can achieve optimum levels of donation to cater for demand.
If you are willing to help by completing an anonymous questionnaire please click on the link below;
Recruitment of the restructured HPC Council begins
With responsibility for regulating 13 health professions, The Health Professions Council (HPC) plays a vital role in protecting the public. We maintain a register of health professionals who meet our standards for training, professional skills, behaviour and health. Therefore it is vital our governing Council understand regulation and are committed to the highest standards of public protection.
In 2007 a government white paper, entitled Trust, Assurance and Safety - The Regulation of Health Professionals in the 21st Century, made a number of proposals regarding the governance arrangements for the nine UK healthcare regulators. One proposal was that the Council's of regulators should be smaller and more 'board-like'. The white paper also proposed that all Council members should be independently appointed rather than elected.
In February 2008 the HPC recommended to the Department of Health (DH) that the number of members on the HPC Council should be 20 (including the President), and that there should be an equal representation of registrant and lay members. On 3 July 2008, the Council agreed the criteria which will be used to appoint the Chair and members of the restructured Council.
The recruitment
campaign to appoint a smaller, more board-like Council has now begun. Advertisements
for the Chair and members of Council are currently appearing in the national
press and in newspapers in England,
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Details are also available
on the website of the Appointments Commission.
http://www.appointments.org.uk/view_vac.asp?ID=2463
Chief Executive of the HPC, Marc Seale, commented;
"I'm looking forward to working with the newly restructured Council. It is a particularly exciting time for us at the HPC with new professions such as practitioner psychologists and hearing aid dispensers set to join our Register over the coming years."
"Council members play a vital role in the strategic direction of the HPC and therefore fulfilling our primary function of protecting the public. It is a rewarding and fulfilling position to hold that has great impact."
HPC's new appointed Council will play a key role in setting strategy and policy and ensuring the HPC fulfils its statutory duties. The aim is to create a diverse Council, with a balanced mix of skills and experience reflecting the professions we regulate and public that we serve. The restructured Council will be comprised of a Chair and 19 Council members.
Following our recommendation regarding the number of Council members the DH has now launched a consultation 'Health Professions Council (Constitution) order 2009'. The consultation is to establish whether our Council should be reformed to 20 members made up of 10 lay and 10 registrant members, reducing the Council from the current 28 members. For more information about this consultation please visit the DH website http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_093275
The College of Paramedics is formally a member of the UK Stroke Forum
We are delighted to announce that the College of Paramedics has been invited to become a stakeholder member of the UK Stroke Forum. Membership of this group represents the importance of the role of our profession in delivering care, as part of a multi-disciplinary effort, to this important group of patients.
As a UK Stroke Forum organisation, the college's membership are able to benefit from 'member rates' at the forthcoming (and indeed future) UK Stroke Forum Conference in Harrogate on 2nd-4th December 2008. For more information please visit this external link: http://www.ukstrokeforum.org/events/uk_stroke_forum_conference/
David Davis, College member and representative of the College on the UK Stroke Forum will represent the profession as a coalition member: Congratulations David on your appointment to the forum and the profession will benefit from your support.
Paramedic Abdominal Ultrasound Research
Thanks to the response from the College members the University of Teesside has surpassed its expectations in recruiting Paramedics for the Ultrasound Study. The University has posted the following message.The Faculty of Pre-hospital Care Research Unit/Department of Academic Emergency Medicine at the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough would like to thank all College members who responded to the recent call for participants in this important aspect of pre-hospital care research. The required sample has been reached and the study is moving into the data collection phase. On study completion a report will be available to individual members from the following address. tricia.scott@stees.nhs.uk.
There is a CPD Guidance manual for the on line system available for download. Please click the link to CPD login on the left of this page and you will find a download link on the next page.
Please check your membership details
Member details
Would members please note that since the amalgamation of Ambulance Trusts there have been changes to many email addresses. This creates a lot of undeliverable messages when we try to circulate information to you.
Please check your personal details on your account and use the update facility to make any changes necessary as soon as possible.
If you find your membership is due for renewal you can click "renew membership" beneath the login box and pay on line
Thank you
Paramedic intubation: the College of Paramedic's response to JRCALC
The college as most of you will be aware has made a robust response to the JCALC report on Airway Management. The report and the College response can be seen on clicking the following links.
JRCALC Report
College responseThe debate is of course about having an available range of methods to ensure that you can manage an airway safely across the range of patients you care for. It is also about taking responsibility for your own practice. Yourr views and experience related to the report and our response are crucial in taking this debate forward to an acceptable conclusion.
Writing for publication in the EMJ
The Emergency Medicine Journal (EMJ) is keen to encourage more ambulance professionals to submit papers for consideration for publication. To encourage this, we have launched a new series - Reflections on Pre-hospital Care. It is often said that hindsight has 20:20 vision, and so this type of article aims to use real incidents attended by pre-hospital providers as a basis for critiquing practice and facilitating learning - either by suggesting better ways a patient or incident could have been managed or to confirm that, after reflection, a difficult incident was dealt with appropriately. Almost all students who have completed or are undertaking a first degree in paramedic sciences will have been taught the reflective process and will probably have produced an assignment based on reflection - these would form the ideal basis for an article for the EMJ. However, all ambulance professionals practice self criticism in their drive to improve their patient care, and this too can be developed into a suitable article.
Each article should follow the following format:
- Start with a brief description of the incident or patient and their management. This section should not exceed 250 words.
- Follow with a critique of up to 500 words that may be based on a reflective model or ethical framework (although this is by no means essential).
- Authors must ensure that patients, colleagues, and organisations are not identifiable. Maximum total word count: 750 words with one optional illustration (if this adds to the piece) or up to 5 references.
- Articles will be selected for publication based on their utility as a vehicle for learning.
- Articles intended for this series should be submitted in the first instance to Prof Malcolm Woollard, Associate Editor for Pre-hospital Care (Malcolm.woollard@btinternet.com) - please do not submit 'Reflections' papers directly to the EMJ. Malcolm will be pleased to provide advice as to suitability of subject matter and assistance with drafting papers on request.
For an example of a structured reflective model see 'Johns C. Framing learning through reflection within Carper's fundamental ways of knowing in nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1995;22:226-234.'
The EMJ publishes a wide range of articles, including evidence-based reviews, original research, and educational papers. We welcome submissions from ambulance professionals in any of these formats: for further information see the instructions for authors at http://emj.bmjjournals.com. If you would like to discuss a possible paper informally or need further advice, please contact Malcolm Woollard, Associate Editor for Pre-hospital Care, at Malcolm.woollard@btinternet.com
Latest News
Professional Indemnity Insurance and medico-legal support
For sometime, the BPA has been aware of the need for its members to have access to affordable professional indemnity cover to cover their private paramedic work.
We are pleased that following discussions with the leading defence body for UK doctors, the Medical Defence Union (the MDU), BPA members can now for the first time apply for membership of the MDU.
MDU membership includes a ���������������������£5 million professional indemnity insurance policy, underwritten by Converium Insurance (UK) Limited, to cover negligence claims arising from a paramedic's private clinical work*, as well as access to a range of other valuable services to support paramedics in both their private and NHS activities. These extra services can include access to medico-legal advice via a freephone helpline 24 hours a day in addition to legal advice and representation at HPC or inquests.
While the BPA is not acting as an introducer to MDU membership and receives no commission, we have negotiated a favourable subscription discount for our members who apply to join the MDU.
To find out more about MDU membership, visit the MDU website at: www.the-mdu.com/paramedics
* subject to the terms and conditions of the policy
Information for Emergency Care Practitioners
There has been a great deal of discussion with Skills for Health and the ECP leads group on the subject of registration and professional support for the developing Emergency Care Practitioner. The BPA have always supported the development of Emergency Care Practitioners and through our website and other arenas we have given an honest and open view of the progression for this part of your profession and its impact on further scope of practice and patient care. please click on the following link to read a news article giving a direct perspective on the view and support from the BPA for this important development.
Chairman's Thoughts
CPD guide - have you got yours?
By now all registered Paramedics should have received a copy of 'Your guide to our standards for continuing professional development'
020...
.If you have any questions regarding CPD, please do not hesitate to contact the BPA. You can also see the HPC website for more information on CPD at: www.hpc-uk.org/registrants/cpd/