References

Health Professions Council. 2008. http//tinyurl.com/qel3rl (accessed 19 December 2011)

Health Professions Council. 2007. http//tinyurl.com/6pmllzn (accessed 29 December 2011)

Trades Union Congress. 2011. http//tinyurl.com/7kfv62n (accessed 29 December 2011)

The College of Paramedics: 10 years on since its formation

12 January 2012
Features
02 January 2012
Volume 4 · Issue 1

It gives us great pleasure to be writing the first column as a regular feature for the Journal of Paramedic Practice (JPP) as part of a new partnership with the College of Paramedics. The JPP is offering members of the College a package that includes all annual issues of the JPP, the International Paramedic Practice journal along with all the monthly continuing professional development (CPD) modules.

The package has been designed to provide the full range of JPP products for a significantly discounted subscription and through convenient quarterly direct debit payments. Under the new partnership arrangement, which began in December 2011, the JPP will also publish the College's quarterly newsletter. We are delighted with this new and exciting partnership and look forward to working with the JPP as the official partner journal of the College of Paramedics.

Our history

Paramedics were registered in 2001 under the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (CPSM) and then later under the Health Professions Council (HPC). The professional body was formed as the British Paramedic Association (BPA) in 2001, became the College of Paramedics in 2007 and reached its tenth anniversary during 2011. The founders of the BPA, and more recently the elected office-holders of the College of Paramedics, have worked tirelessly to ensure that paramedics have a formal body that can represent them on issues that would not be within the remit of other bodies. Due to the rapidly evolving nature and relative infancy of our profession it is understandable that many paramedics raise questions about the individual roles of the regulator and professional body. In this context, before describing the role of the College of Paramedics, a short overview of the roles of the other bodies follows:

The regulator

As part of the essential legal framework surrounding a registered profession, a regulator has to be identified or established with certain key duties focusing upon protection of the public, which are defined by statute. The regulator's role is to protect the public and it does this by:

  • a) Setting standards, defined in the ‘Standards of Proficiency,’ (Health Professions Council (HPC), 2007) and the ‘Standards of Conduct Performance and Ethics,’ (HPC, 2008) for the profession and approving education programmes that lead to registration (HPC). The regulator can and, indeed in the case of paramedics, quite frequently does, take action against professionals who do not meet the standards it has set
  • b) Holding and maintaining a register of professionals who meet the standards set by the regulator. There are parallels with medicine, which is self-regulating, but also some differences. For example, the General Medical Council (GMC) sets the standards and maintains the register for doctors whilst each arm of medicine has its own professional body such as the Royal College of Surgeons or the College of Emergency Medicine. Paramedics, along with 14 other health professions, are not self-regulating, but are all regulated by the HPC. The HPC is a statutory body which is independent of the 15 professions it regulates. Its primary purpose is therefore to protect the public by setting standards and holding professionals to account where necessary. Read more at www.hpc-uk.org.

    • The Trades Unions

    The Trades Union Congress describes trades unions as:

    ‘Organized groups of workers who come together to support each other in the workplace, negotiating with employers to improve pay, terms and conditions and ensure fair and equal treatment.’ (Trades Union Congress, 2011)

    Unions also provide members with individual advice and representation, and may offer opportunities for personal and professional development. Although they share a collective approach to representing members, professional bodies and trades unions have different roles and while the trades unions’ role has been well-established over a long period of time, the role of the professional body may be less well understood.

    The professional body

    All professions have established professional bodies, for example the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) for nurses; the Royal College of Midwifery for midwives; the Royal College of speech and language therapists; etc. The HPC describes the role of professional bodies as:

  • Promoting the profession (both to the HPC and more broadly)
  • Representing members interests in relation to profession-specific issues (rather than for example pay and conditions)
  • Developing the curriculum framework
  • Developing post-registration education
  • Continuing professional development (CPD).

    • It is expected, for example, that when the HPC creates and reviews the Standards of Proficiency and the Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics, they work in collaboration with the professional body. This allows members of the professional body to take responsibility for their own professional future and development.

    The College of paramedics

    Given the roles of the three types of organizations described above, it becomes clear which is best positioned to address a number of issues which are given as examples below and are frequently raised by paramedics:

  • Why do Ambulance Foundation Trusts have a mandated nursing presence on their boards but no requirement for a paramedic?
  • Airway management has been a matter of concern to paramedics over recent years. How can the evidence base be interrogated and interpreted by paramedics, often in the face of alternate views, to enable the profession to ensure that it plays a leading role in shaping own clinical practice both at national level and in ambulance organizations?
  • How should specialist paramedic roles be increased and expanded to enhance patient care in acute situations and to avoid hospital attendance for low-acuity cases?
  • What will be the role of paramedics and how will the profession develop given the recent establishment of a new medical sub-specialty in prehospital emergency medicine?
  • How will the future professional relationship between paramedics and medicine evolve? Would the model be similar to that which exists between midwives and obstetricians? operating department practitioners and anaesthetists? clinical psychologists and psychiatrists? These questions are important as they will influence the impact of paramedic practice upon patient care, the degree of autonomy and our scope of practice, all of which link to the career framework, agenda for change and much more.
  • Taking independent paramedic prescribing forward, on the pattern established with pharmacy and in nursing.
  • How can access to the NHS bursary scheme be accessed by paramedic students, in the way that is common for all other allied health professions?

    • These examples represent just some of the current and important topics affecting paramedic practice, which are being taken forward vigorously by the College of Paramedics. In the past, paramedics may have complained that they are either powerless to influence improvements or too remote from certain issues for them to be relevant. The challenge for paramedics now is to act in an effective and compelling way to influence all of these issues.

    Recent developments

    The College of Paramedics is expanding rapidly with membership growth, a new head office established, staff appointed, and a national programme of CPD delivered in 2011. We are indebted to BoundTree Medical as the Corporate Partner which has sponsored almost all of the CPD events held throughout the country.

    The College has responded to a number of important consultations and has developed a working relationship with a group of senior NHS ambulance service managers. On 7 September 2011, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Emergency Ambulance and Paramedic Services (APPGEAPS) held a reception in the Houses of Parliament which was attended by Lords, members of Parliament, ambulance service chief executives and chairs, and many other stakeholders as well as members of the College's Governing Council. Events such as these are hugely important in raising awareness about the capability and potential of paramedics as there is little doubt that this it is still not widely understood.

    The Governing Council of the College has identified 24 issues that are important to paramedics and will be developed as position statements and in some cases, active campaigns to seek change or improvement. This will be done while we continue to increase the range of benefits through discounts and the national CPD programme, but it is those issues that are at the heart of the profession's practice that will receive priority during 2012. We will continue to promote the capability of paramedics and the need for specialist paramedics in both the primary and acute fields of patient care.

    We will ensure the profession and its development is held firmly by paramedics and that medical and other groups that have a strong interest in prehospital care understand the independent nature and responsibilities of the professional body representing paramedics.