Hearing the voice of the minority

The College of Paramedics recently published its five-year strategic plan (College of Paramedics, 2014) where it set out its vision for the next two to five years. The document should be important for all members of the paramedic profession but there is little doubt that it will go unnoticed among the majority of paramedic registrants. The College states that around 19% of paramedics who were registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) in October 2013 were members of the College, which equates to around 3 700 members. The numbers are growing slowly but when the College of Paramedics membership is compared with other healthcare professions, it is concerning. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (2014) boasts 59 000 members even though there are only just over 47 000 registrants, and the British Dietetic Association (2013) has more than 7 500 members from a registrant population of just 8 355 (HCPC, 2014).