Emergency medical personnel in the United Kingdom are people engaged in the provision of emergency medical services and include paramedics, emergency medical technicians and emergency care support workers. Although there is tendency for the public to refer to all ambulance staff as 'paramedics', the term is protected by law and strictly regulated by the Health Professions Council.
Emergency medical personnel most often work in an ambulance alongside another member of staff. Typically, an ambulance will be crewed by either a paramedic with another crew member (technician or emergency support worker), two technicians or a technician with an emergency support worker. No NHS ambulance trust in the country currently offers a paramedic on every ambulance, although some trusts are moving towards this.
The majority of emergency medical personnel are employed by the public ambulance services of the National Health Service, although many are also employed by private ambulance companies and the two voluntary aid societies (British Red Cross and St. John Ambulance), either providing private services such as event medical cover, or providing support to the NHS ambulance services under contract.
As part of a cost-saving exercise NHS is in the process of phasing out the ambulance technician/emergency medical technician (Band 4 on the Agenda for Change) role from the services and replacing it with the Emergency Care Support Worker or Emergency Care Assistant roles (Band 3 on the A4C), and most services are no longer training staff at technician level.
Read more about Emergency Medical Personnel In The United Kingdom: Levels of Staff, Road Traffic Collisions
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