New Website Launched
Your Opinion
The entry level to the Paramedic register be set at a minimum of foundation degree or diploma?
The College has launched a new website.
www.collegeofparamedics.net
We have now transferred all members to the new site. If you have not received an email with your new details then please contact us.
Education opportunity in Derbyshire
East Midlands Immediate Care Scheme are offering an evening with the ECG on 15th February 2010. The cost is £3.00 and is suitable for your CPD work.
Please follow the link below for more details.
An evening with the ECG
NHS Constitution - Consultation document.
I am sure that you have at least an awareness of the development of the NHS constitution dealing with new patient rights.
As a professional body it would be very helpful if we were to consider the consultation and provide a response with suggested changes or a statement of agreement.
If you would like to make any comment, then please do so using the page and paragraph references from the document. You can send your feedback to me by email and make the subject NHS Constitution. This will help to collate responses more effectively.
The following link will allow you to download the consultation from our website.
Important research on the subject of Myocardial Infarction recognition.
The College of Paramedics and Anglia Ruskin University are pleased to be working together on an exciting piece of research. The Panorama ECG is a new, patented technology that was developed by Dr Aimen Hassani, a consultant anaesthetist, and Professor Claudio Zizzo, a professor of electronics. It presents the information from a twelve lead ECG as coloured areas on a picture of a heart on a computer monitor. The colours change from green showing a healthy region to red or blue showing areas of ST segment elevation or depression. This is done in real time for rapid diagnosis and to allow the response to treatment to be clearly seen.
Dr Aimen Hassani said We are very proud of this new technology. At the moment it is a working prototype, running on a laptop, but the program could be used in all devices that are currently used to display twelve lead ECGs. It could therefore be used at all points in a patients journey, from pre-hospital care, through A&E, theatres, critical care or coronary care. Small trials have been done with junior doctors and critical care nurses, and a study is ongoing with theatre patients. This national study with the College of Paramedics is very exciting. It is the first to explore use of the device with pre-hospital personnel. If the device shows promise, this study could be the first step towards clinical trials of the device in the pre-hospital setting.
All members of the College of Paramedics will receive an e-mail inviting them to take part in the study, with full details and a link to the questionnaire. The research has full ethical approval and participation is entirely anonymous. You will be asked to confirm your e-mail address at the start of the questionnaire, but this will only be used to check that you are eligible to enter the study and will be removed before the results are analysed.
Professor Malcolm Woollard, Chair of the College of Paramedics, said Were very enthused to be collaborating on this important study. Research such as this is the foundation of all development of our science. We hope that all members will support the College and our profession by taking part in the study.
You can contact the research team at PanoramaECG@hotmail.co.uk .
The National Ambulance Research Steering Group produces a regular bulletin for the information of all involved in delivering pre hospital care. Issue 7 is available for you by clicking the following link
EMERGENCY SERVICES UPDATE ISS 7Independent Prescribing for Advanced Paramedics
Prescribing for advanced Paramedics and important development
The Department of Health are preparing for a consultation on the implementation of prescribing for advanced paramedics.
The DH are seeking the support of the College of Paramedics to gather examples of where prescribing would benefit patients in mainly the non life threatening conditions and urgent emergency care groups. Examples can be real time or non real time suggestions. The work will be used to inform the final presentation and the planned consultation. Please follow the link below to get more information from the members only part of the site.
You are strongly encouraged to participate in this important work for the future of patient care and your profession.
http://www.britishparamedic.org/consultations/
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.
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 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 ReportCollege 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
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 pounds 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