Should emergency medical technicians be considered for the role of the emergency care practitioner?

Abstract

We enjoyed a recent discussion in this journal about the evaluation of the role of the emergency care practitioner (ECP).1,2 In the UK, 77% of ECPs are paramedics and most of the remainder are nurses,2 although studies report them as a homogeneous group. We also find differences within ECPs interesting, particularly as ECPs in London have also been recruited from emergency medical technicians (EMTs). https://emj.bmj.com/content/23/11/888.1 This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emj.2006.038968