HEE launches new roadmap for paramedic careers

Health Education England has developed a new pathway to help paramedics advance their careers.

The ‘roadmap to practice’ outlines the skills and attributes needed to help paramedics become first contact practitioners (FCPs) or advanced practitioners (APs).

FCPs are diagnostic clinicians qualified to master’s level who work to support GPs as part of an integrated team.

APs are also clinicians qualified to master’s level, but with a higher level of expertise working across all the whole scope of advanced practice.

FCPs and APs come from a number of allied health professions, and apart from being highly-skilled in their own area of expertise are trained to consider a person’s total health needs and to work with a multi-profession team. This benefits both care and outcome for patients through improved critical thinking and decision-making, and better teamwork.

The new roadmap provides a clear educational pathway for paramedics who wish to work in primary care, as well as setting out the supervision and governance needed and giving training guidance for supervisors.

Beverley Harden, Allied Health Professions Lead, Health Education England, said: “This document provides a clear training pathway for paramedics into primary care, and will help to provide a pipeline of highly-skilled staff to meet the future needs of patients.

“In addition it consolidates our work to ensure our much-valued paramedics have a clear route to continue to expand their skills and professional development.”

Suzanne Rastrick, Chief Allied Health Professions Officer for England, added: “The paramedic profession will make an increasingly vital contribution as part of the primary care workforce.

“The paramedic roadmap supports both the optimal professional development of paramedics and also their effective deployment in primary care. I am delighted to support this work.“

The document, ‘First Contact Practitioners and Advanced Practitioners in Primary Care: (Paramedic) A Roadmap to Practice’, can be viewed here:- https://www.hee.nhs.uk/our-work/primary-care/first-contact-practitioners-advanced-practitioners-paramedics