TY - JOUR T1 - A critical reassessment of ambulance service airway management in prehospital care: Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison Committee Airway Working Group, June 2008 JF - Emergency Medicine Journal JO - Emerg Med J SP - 226 LP - 233 DO - 10.1136/emj.2009.082115 VL - 27 IS - 3 AU - Charles D Deakin AU - Tom Clarke AU - Jerry Nolan AU - David A Zideman AU - Carl Gwinnutt AU - Fionna Moore AU - Michael Ward AU - Carl Keeble AU - Wim Blancke Y1 - 2010/03/01 UR - http://emj.bmj.com/content/27/3/226.abstract N2 - Paramedic tracheal intubation has been practised in the UK for more than 20 years and is currently a core skill for paramedics. Growing evidence suggests that tracheal intubation is not the optimal method of airway management by paramedics and may be detrimental to patient outcomes. There is also evidence that the current initial training of 25 intubations performed in-hospital is inadequate, and that the lack of ongoing intubation practice may compound this further. Supraglottic airway devices (eg, laryngeal mask airway), which were not available when extended training and paramedic intubation was first introduced, are now in use in many ambulance services and are a suitable alternative prehospital airway device for paramedics. ER -