A pilot of the Paramedic Advanced Resuscitation of Children (PARC) course
Abstract
Paramedics are the primary providers of prehospital care to children in an emergency. However, they deal with children's emergencies infrequently, and consistently report a lack of confidence in this area. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health standards state that clinicians with Advanced Paediatric Life Support (APLS) training or equivalent must be available at all times to deal with emergencies involving children. While APLS is widely recognised as the gold standard in paediatric training, it focuses on in-hospital providers of paediatric life support, so may not adequately meet the needs of prehospital providers. The Paramedic Advanced Resuscitation of Children (PARC) course attempts to condense the most important aspects of APLS for paramedics into a simulation-based programme that is practical and cost effective. Evaluation of the views of the eight paramedics who took part in the pilot revealed that they felt more confident in managing children's emergencies after attending the course. The PARC course may be a simple, cost-effective method to improve paramedics’ confidence in dealing with emergencies involving children.
Emergencies involving children are rare in comparison with those involving adults (Fleischman et al, 2011; Lammers et al, 2012). When paediatric emergencies do occur, however, paramedics are expected to be able to provide life-saving interventions, including complex skills such as intravenous (IV) and intraosseous (IO) cannulation, needle cricothyroidotomy and needle thoracocentesis (Houston and Pearson, 2010; Breon et al, 2011a). Paramedics generally receive little training or education that is specific to children's emergencies (Houston and Pearson, 2010; Breon et al, 2011a) and, across the world, paramedics report a lack of paediatric training, little exposure to paediatric emergencies and low confidence in dealing with paediatric emergencies (Breon et al, 2011b).
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) recently produced the fourth edition of its Facing the Future publication, which sets standards for the provision of emergency care to children (RCPCH, 2018). While these standards are aimed primarily at the care given by children's emergency departments, they raise questions about the level of care provided to children in emergency situations by ambulance services.
Subscribe to get full access to the Journal of Paramedic Practice
Thank you for visiting the Journal of Paramedic Practice and reading our archive of expert clinical content. If you would like to read more from the only journal dedicated to those working in emergency care, you can start your subscription today for just £48.
What's included
-
CPD Focus
-
Develop your career
-
Stay informed