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What's New in Emergency Pre-hospital Care Research? 2008 Conference organised by 999 EMS Research Forum in collaboration with University of Sheffield and the National Ambulance Research Steering Group
Posters
Angels with wings (and morphine): do RAF winchmen need to be paramedics?
  1. L Dykes,
  2. D McDowell,
  3. Edward Griffiths,
  4. Richard Taylor, (RAF Winchmen)
  1. North West Wales NHS Trust, Gwynedd, UK

    https://doi.org/10.1136/emj.2009.075416k

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      Royal Air Force (RAF) Search and Rescue (SAR) Sea King helicopters with winching capability enable casualties to be reached in locations inaccessible to other emergency services (eg cliffs, boats). RAF SAR exists primarily to rescue military personnel, but most jobs are civilian.

      New winchmen undertake paramedic training during their first tour of duty. Hence, the proportion of HPC-registered paramedic-winchmen at each base temporarily falls when new winchmen arrive. We conducted a pilot study to estimate how many SAR jobs utilise paramedic skills at two contrasting SAR bases.

      Method

      We studied two SAR bases:

      • RAF Valley, Anglesey: 4/5 paramedic winchmen in 2008

      • RAF Wattisham, Suffolk: 1/4 paramedic winchmen in 2008

      All jobs from 1/1/08–11/10/08 were identified retrospectively from RAF Patient Report Forms and job/flight logs. The authors decided whether “Paramedic skills would likely have been used if available” based upon the clinical scenario. We included patients packaged by other agencies (eg ships doctors) who had used skills/drugs available to paramedic (but not technician) winchmen.

      Results

      See table.

      View this table:
      Abstract 011

      Table

      Conclusion

      • The work of RAF SAR winchmen varies, but many casualties require (or would benefit from) paramedic skills.

      • We estimate that 51% of Valley’s jobs and 63% of Wattisham’s would utilise paramedic skills if all winchmen were paramedic trained.

      • Our data are preliminary, retrospective and subjective. Nevertheless we believe it supports the RAF’s ongoing programme of paramedic-training winchmen.

      • A full evaluation will require data from all six RAF SAR bases (ideally collected prospectively) in order to analyse factors that influence whether (and which) paramedic skills are utilised.