The Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) is an independent statutory organisation responsible for implementing, monitoring and further developing the standards of care provided by all statutory, private and voluntary

ambulance services An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to medi ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It is also responsible for conducting examinations at six levels of pre-hospital care, the control of ambulance

practitioner Practitioner may refer to: *Health practitioner *Justice and public safety practitioner * Legal practitioner * Medical practitioner *Mental health professional or practitioner *Theatre practitioner Spiritual Practitioner * Solitary practitioner ...

registration and the publication of clinical practice guidelines.

Levels of Care

There are six skill levels obtainable. They are divided into responder and practitioner categories. As of September 2019, all practitioners working on an emergency ambulance must be trained to a minimum of

paramedic A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research. Not all ambulance personnel are p ...

, however in 2021 this minimum requirement was temporarily waived allowing an EMT to crew with a paramedic or advanced paramedic for the remainder of the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

era. A practitioner working on a non-emergency transport or intermediate care vehicle must be at least an

emergency medical technician An emergency medical technician (EMT), also known as an ambulance technician, is a health professional that provides emergency medical services. EMTs are most commonly found working in ambulances. In English-speaking countries, paramedics are ...

Responders

Responder training is aimed towards workplace response, Gardaí, fire service personnel,

military personnel Military personnel are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, air force, space force, and coast guard), rank (officer, non-commissioned officer, or e ...

, voluntary first aid organisations, sports clubs and security services. Voluntary first aid services such as

Civil Defence Civil defense ( en, region=gb, civil defence) or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state (generally non-combatants) from man-made and natural disasters. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mit ...

Order of Malta Ambulance Corps The Order of Malta Ireland – Ambulance Corps is a voluntary ambulance and first aid organisation operating in Ireland in affiliation with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, founded in 1938. Its purposes include teaching first aid, providi ...

, Irish Red Cross and the St John Ambulance Brigade of Ireland avail of responder training to allow their members provide on-site first aid at the various events they cover. Certain remote communities have set up their own individual Cardiac First Response programmes, where various people in the area are trained to PHECC Level 1 (CFR) standard and are provided with an

Automated External Defibrillator An automated external defibrillator (AED) is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation (VF) and pulseless ventricular tachycardia, and is able to treat them thro ...

. These responders can then be called or paged to the scene of a cardiac arrest to provide

CPR Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure consisting of chest compressions often combined with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore sponta ...

and defibrillation, where the increased response time of an ambulance would greatly affect the patient's outcome.

Practitioners

Practitioners must maintain their place on the register annually in order to practice. Once registered, practitioners are governed by a code of conduct, care principles, regulations and various laws, (primarily

tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

law) when engaging with the public. As a result, practitioners are subject to professional accountability in terms of their professional practice and actions. Upon qualification and registration, a practitioner is issued with an identification number and licence card. The practitioner's PIN must be entered on all patient care records for any incident where the practitioner had contact with a patient. It is the responsibility of the licence holder to maintain an ongoing, predetermined standard of competency.

CPG Approved Service Providers

All organisations and companies who are providing an ambulance service in any capacity must register with PHECC as a CPG Approved Service Provider to work to the current edition of Clinical Practice Guidelines published by PHECC. Approved Service Providers are broken down into four categories. 3rd Edition CPG Providers are the

Irish Defence Forces The Defence Forces ( ga, Fórsaí Cosanta, officially styled ) derives its origins from the Irish Volunteers. Whilst the Irish for ''Defence Forces'' is , as Ó Cearúil (1999) points out, the Defence Forces are officially styled . is used in ...

and Event Medical Services Ltd. 3rd Edition CPG Providers are listed on the PHECC website and updated regularly.

''Citizen CPR'' campaign

In 2010, PHECC launched a poster-advertising and television-ad campaign aimed at informing the general public of what to do if they should witness an adult suddenly collapse. Its focus was to emphasise the fact that

can still be effective without mouth-to-mouth contact. Pocket-sized cards were distributed with instructions on the steps to take: # Check: check if the person is unresponsive and not breathing. # Call: Get someone to call

999 999 or triple nine most often refers to: * 999 (emergency telephone number), a telephone number for the emergency services in several countries * 999 (number), an integer * AD 999, a year * 999 BC, a year Books * ''999'' (anthology) or ''999: T ...

or 112 or call them yourself. # Compress: Push hard and fast in the centre of the chest. Don't stop until help arrives.

Red Card

The Red Card has been developed by PHECC to help responders prepare prior to calling an ambulance. The card will prompt appropriate information from the Garda Síochána and Fire Service personnel on-scene who require an emergency ambulance to attend.

References

{{Reflist

External links

PHECC Citizen CPR Website
Ambulance services in Ireland Medical and health organisations based in the Republic of Ireland