Research

Spotlight on Research

COVID-19 is a novel pathogen that can cause severe pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome which can lead to multi-organ failure/death. This retrospective Chinese study looked at the...

Prehospital neuromuscular blockade post OHCA: UK's first paramedic-delivered protocol

The aim of this study was to report on the administration of paramedic-delivered NMBA, which started on 1 April 2016 at SECAmb, and examine this practice innovation and its acceptability as an...

A comparison of handover communication in NHS and military emergency care

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 13 paramedics to explore differences in handover communication between military and civilian practice and to understand the challenges of transitioning...

Point-of-care testing by paramedics using a portable laboratory: an evaluation

The specific aim of the current project was to safely reduce the number of patients conveyed by SECAmb to the ED and thereby improve the patient experience. Having reliable pathology diagnostics...

Changing perspectives in the prehospital management of patients with severe burns

A literature review of the CINAHL, Medline and Cochrane databases was carried out using the keywords ‘burn*’ AND ‘cooling’ OR ‘hypothermia’ OR ‘airway’ OR ‘inhalation’ AND ‘emergency’. The results...

Improving pressure ulcer risk identification: a pilot project by ambulance staff

The project adopted a pragmatic, systematic approach to methods and used a formal ‘Plan, Do, Study, Act’ improvement methodology. This was influenced by traditional models of quality and safety...

Are cervical collars effective and safe in prehospital spinal cord injury management?

A literature review was chosen to source up-to-date research and knowledge, in order to identify areas for further investigation and, ultimately, to gain more knowledge regarding a topic that is of...

Prehospital amputation: a scoping review

In cases in which extrication is not possible within a reasonable time frame to prevent the death of the patient, or because of clinical deterioration or a scene safety emergency, limb or extremity...

Improving post-resuscitation care after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

With the aim of identifying literature and evidence relevant to OHCA and post-resuscitation care, online searches of PubMed, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) using NHS...