Anaesthesia trauma and critical care course

The Anaesthesia Trauma and Critical Care Course (ATACC) was developed in 1997 to provide an alternative to the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course (Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 2012), which would have the benefit of being developed around current clinical practice within the UK (Forrest et al, 2006). It was also highlighted that ATLS, although widely taught to various professionals, has a strong surgical bias that may not always be beneficial or appropriate. ATACC was designed to address this bias by developing a course which was representative of the need for early involvement from various specialists, especially those of anaesthesia (Forrest et al, 2006). A secondary, but equally important aim in the development of ATACC, was to provide an up-to-date, evidence-based course as an alternative to ATLS, which has been critiqued for lacking appropriate underpinning evidence (Luke, 2006; Southern and Sen, 2007) and lacking relevance for UK practice (Driscoll and Wardrope, 2005; Southern and Sen, 2007). The ATACC faculty have also developed and run a number of other Rescue Trauma and Critical Care (RTACC) courses (Box 1), designed for healthcare practitioners and others working in pre-hospital environments. They also offer courses in Critical Care Patient Transfer, Incident Safety Assessment and Human Simulation Critical Incident Training (ATACC, 2011).