LETTER

Should emergency medical technicians be considered for the role of the emergency care practitioner?

M Halter¹, T Marlow², D Jackson³, F Moore⁴, B Postance⁵

¹ Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, Kingston University/St George’s, University of London, London, UK
² London Ambulance Service NHS Trust, London
³ Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, Kingston University/St George’s
⁴ London Ambulance Service NHS Trust
⁵ Community Services Development, Surbiton, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
M Halter
Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, Kingston University/St George’s, University of London, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, UK; mhalter@hscs.sgul.ac.uk

Accepted 28 June 2006

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We enjoyed a recent discussion in this journal about the evaluation of the role of the emergency care practitioner (ECP).^1,2 In the UK, 77% of ECPs are paramedics and most of the remainder are nurses,² although studies report them as a homogeneous group. We also find differences within ECPs interesting, particularly as ECPs in London have also been recruited from emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

In the London pilot, 11 EMTs undertook the same ECP diploma-level education as paramedic recruits, with EMTs also needing to complete paramedic training before qualifying as ECPs. We examined their performance in the period when they were practising autonomously as ECPs, but before their paramedic training.

Educational performance of EMTs was similar to that of a group of paramedic ECPs matched by operating area and length of time as ECPs—physical assessment average marks 59.8% v 57.3% and clinical decision making average marks by Objective Structured Clinical . . . [Full text of this article]

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