Clinical Practice

Is there scope for an observational pain scoring tool in paramedic practice?

Pain scoring and indeed pain management has widely been studied in the pre-hospital environment, with many different aspects explored. These include paramedic perspectives (Jones and Machen, 2003),...

Pain and suffering: how do we treat both?

Spotlight on Research is edited by Julia Williams, principal lecturer, paramedic science, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire UK. To find out how you can contribute to future...

The challenges of pre-hospital paediatric trauma care

Who are the paediatric trauma experts? Prior to establishing trauma networks, the entire burden of paediatric trauma divided amongst receiving units led to an average of just over one case of major...

Fundamentals of blood pressure measurement

The body relies in the main on two key systems to ensure that blood pressure is maintained at the correct level to meet the body's requirements. In the longer term, the renin angiotensin aldosterone...

An audit of 4679 consecutive emergencies for an emergency care practitioner

The data presented here is an audit of 4 679 consecutive emergency calls attended by a single ECP between November 2007 and November 2013. The data was collected in a large urban environment, a town...

The evolving role of the Emergency Medical Retrieval Service critical care practitioner

EMRS has two teams available 24 hours a day. Each team comprises of two, the first person being a consultant with a specialty in emergency medicine, anaesthetics or intensive care, and the second...

Research developments within the Allied Health Professions Research Network (AHPRN)

‘The AHPRN is a development of the National Physiotherapy Research Network which was developed in 2004, and officially launched in 2005 following a call for proposals from the (CSP) for a research...

Ambulance CPAP Saves Lives: why don't we use it?

Current UK ambulance guidelines (Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison Committee (JRCALC), 2013) advocate the use of nitrates (in particular, glyceryl trinitrate) as the first-line treatment of ACPE....

Anatomical and physiological mechanisms of heartblock associated with AMI

The heartbeat is initiated by an intrinsic electrical system composed of modified myocytes. These myocytes are organised into a group of spontaneously discharging pacemaker cells, situated in the...