Paediatric Education for UK Paramedics

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We had the pleasure of hosting 10 delegates for a College of Paramedics CPD event this week - the topic was Paediatric Resuscitation. The morning started with some resuscitation reminders and a short discussion on clinical human factors. 

Of the 10, there was a good mix of students and registrants from a variety of different NHS Trusts. All worked on frontline for the ambulance service. 

A couple of interesting findings from the mornings discussion: 

• 2/10 had attended a paediatric cardiac arrest, reinforcing the notion that this is a rare event. 
• 0/10 had ever completed a paediatric ALS assessment, either in training or once qualified. 
• 0/10 had ever completed an EPLS/APLS or other paediatric emergency course. 

Our intention for the day was for delegates to leave with increased confidence in managing paediatric emergencies, this would be achieved using our immersive interactive classrooms.

From a human factors point of view, it was beneficial to understand from the beginning that none of the group have done any paediatric assessment or post-registration courses. It meant that there were no assumptions made about abilities within the group, so that they could enter each scenario knowing that there skill levels were fairly similar.

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This left us somewhat confused...

With lots of emphasis on ALS assessments to gain employment (usually, if not always on adults) we should, and so, expect Paramedics to be very good at it. For the most part, we are (for adults) but two reports (Jewkes, 2001 and Houston & Pearson, 2010) highlighted some years ago that paediatric education was lacking and that it was highly likely an ambulance person with no specific paediatric training could attend a child.

And so in 2016, it seems that those findings may still be the case. Now we just had a snapshot of 10 people, so I would be interested to understand what happens where you work. Please comment on the blog posts, but I'd like to survey the College membership later this year to get a more significant picture from across the country. 

Will Broughton
Academy Director and Paramedic

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References
Jewkes F. Current topic: Prehospital emergency care for children. Arch Dis Child [Internet]. 2001 Feb 1 [cited 2015 Jul 13];84(2):103–5. Available from: http://adc.bmj.com/content/84/2/103.full

Houston R, Pearson GA. Ambulance provision for children: a UK national survey. Emerg Med J [Internet]. 2010 Aug 1 [cited 2015 May 2];27(8):631–6. Available from: http://emj.bmj.com/content/early/2010/05/31/emj.2009.088880