Becoming a paramedic/ambulance technician

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mandy4727

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Ideas on how I would go about this please. I have no medical qualifications and probably way too old so would have to start at the bottom. But I absolutely love everything medical and diagnose everyone on Holby City and Casualty. Not the reason for my interest but anyway. Was a first aider at work for a few years. Am 45 to a bit old I know. But pointers in the right direction are very much appreciated.
 
mandy4727 said:
Ideas on how I would go about this please. I have no medical qualifications and probably way too old so would have to start at the bottom. But I absolutely love everything medical and diagnose everyone on Holby City and Casualty. Not the reason for my interest but anyway. Was a first aider at work for a few years. Am 45 to a bit old I know. But pointers in the right direction are very much appreciated.
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The owner of the horses I look after is an ambulance driver/paramedic and so is my cousin! My cousin had to go through training, and then a selective process. It took a while, possibly a year or more. It started from like 5000 then to 1000, 500, 300 etc..

I'm fairly sure she trained from doing the selection process. But don't hold me up on that! I would suggest either google/NHS or if you can ever walk down to your local ambulance station, they should be able to offer good pointers ! Sorry I can't help more,
Good luck!
 
Training is now (as far as I know) being shifted towards a degree course. When my mum did her training, it was a mixture of classroom, assessment and on the job training. It lasted three years. She was, I think, about 45 when she started training so never too old, she also wasn't from a medical background- her degree was in History and she had mainly done office-based work.

Not too sure how it works elsewhere but over here everything is run by the NI Ambulance Service. I presume other places across the UK have a similar set up by county or region.
 
Interesting as I'd like to be a paramedic. However I've always held back as I would probably be in floods of tears if someone passed away. :(
 
holeymoley said:
Interesting as I'd like to be a paramedic. However I've always held back as I would probably be in floods of tears if someone passed away. :(
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I wanted to be a paramedic once.. but then I realized my phobia of sick and can't deal with blood :rolleyes: - Well, that plan went out the window! :o
 
Parachute said:
I wanted to be a paramedic once.. but then I realized my phobia of sick and can't deal with blood :rolleyes: - Well, that plan went out the window! :o
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I don't mind. I had to clean up sick at work the other week :mad::rolleyes:. Then a woman at work stood on a nail and I had to clean her foot and stuff. If you think about it too much it would put you off but I think or I like to think:p I'm quite good at the time!

ETA - I am a first aider! I really enjoyed the course too.
 
As a hospital doctor I don't want to burst your bubble but casualty and holby city are not at all realistic!!

Prepare for long hours, ferrying about elderly people who should be anywhere rather than being admitted to hospital, and responding to people who think their sprained wrist/sore finger/stubbed toe are genuine reasons for dialing 999! Oh, and waiting with your patient in A&E until a much in demand bed become available! :mad:

However; its not all doom and gloom. A few cases will make you feel proud as you've correctly diagnosed and started treatment preventing them deteriorating even before they reach hospital. And get ready for the adrenaline rush as you go out to big trauma's/RTC/air ambulance cases and deal with life threatening injuries...... :D

Good luck xx
 
holeymoley said:
I don't mind. I had to clean up sick at work the other week :mad::rolleyes:. Then a woman at work stood on a nail and I had to clean her foot and stuff. If you think about it too much it would put you off but I think or I like to think:p I'm quite good at the time!
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Haha! See that i'd have a panic attack seeing/hearing/smelling/seeing sick and someone stood on a nail!? I think i'd have passed out on the spot!
Horse injuries, blood, puss i'm fine with. People, no good at all! :D

Added: I qualified as a first-aider for 5 years from doing my Btec Sports course ! Don't know how, I had to leave the room when it came to bones and blood!
 
Haha:D yes I enjoyed the walking to sick area with full disposable uniform on :D. The smell however was something else, but you get special powder to put on it that takes it a way and solidifies it :)
 
I am a bit of a heartless soul so deaths wouldnt bother me. Animals yes, people no. I would be happy to start at the bottom as I know I would not being medically qualified. Just been on the Ambulance Service website and that is very good. Does not discriminate against age and says you start at a level that is right for you and given all the support you need. Worth a shot as you only live once.
 
Pretty much all my family are paramedics (my dad, my uncle, my auntie and my husband) my mum and I are nurses and thats pretty much everyone.
Paramedics are now degree based think there are 12 universitys that do the course so competition is stiff and its unpaid for 3 years. There are other opportunities though such as ambulance technician or emergency health care assistants, that are "on the job" paid training. Also St John have a paid division as opposed to the voluntary side that do non emergency calls. The NHS careers website would be the place to look for the technician jobs (some you need your D1 lisence or to have passed your driving test pre Jan 1997 others you dont need it) Indeed.com tend to have the St John adverts. But as someone has a family with a combined total of 170 years of working in health care Holby City it aint.
 
I know Holby and Casualy arent real, they are tv programmes. I watch all the others too as I just love medical programmes they facinate me. Its a job I would love, give 110% to work as long and hard as it took. Was a first aider at work and although you werent in demand much I enjoyed it even the course. I am not afraid of hard work long hours dealing with difficult and ackward people. I know every job has its down side.
 
Think about starting by becoming a Community First Responder. It's voluntary but the training is great and its with your local ambulance service. I've done it for a few years and it gives you a good insight into the work. You only respond when your logged on and it doesn't need to be all the time and its only on your local area. The initiative was started in order to get a difibrillator to someone having a heart attack as fast as possible and we have saved lives. Or also look at training with St Johns or Red Cross or one of the many private ambulance services where you can start as a first aider and work your way up. Good luck, I am a Pre hospital trauma nurse and I love my job especially working at the racecourses! If you want more info PM me. :)
 
ellijay said:
Think about starting by becoming a Community First Responder. It's voluntary but the training is great and its with your local ambulance service. I've done it for a few years and it gives you a good insight into the work. You only respond when your logged on and it doesn't need to be all the time and its only on your local area. The initiative was started in order to get a difibrillator to someone having a heart attack as fast as possible and we have saved lives. Or also look at training with St Johns or Red Cross or one of the many private ambulance services where you can start as a first aider and work your way up. Good luck, I am a Pre hospital trauma nurse and I love my job especially working at the racecourses! If you want more info PM me. :)
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I got very jealous of my husband last month as he spent the afternoon behind the scenes at Aintree
 
ellijay said:
Think about starting by becoming a Community First Responder. It's voluntary but the training is great and its with your local ambulance service. I've done it for a few years and it gives you a good insight into the work. You only respond when your logged on and it doesn't need to be all the time and its only on your local area. The initiative was started in order to get a difibrillator to someone having a heart attack as fast as possible and we have saved lives. QUOTE]

I was a CFR, the training was all weekend for about 6 weeks, covered a lot of stuff, most of which was completely irrelevant to what you are expected to do. A few of the people on my course left because they were so bomberded with info, it was ok if you had some medical knowledge they were totally new to it. I'm a healthcare assistant at the local hospital so already knew a lot of it, but had to attend anyway. The only good thing about it was that we got to go out for a 12hour shift with an ambulance crew....now that was exciting!
However, the ambulance service as a whole (IMO) seem to dislike the scheme, I think because some CFRs like to think they actually are a paramedic! One town near us even has it's own car, proper ambulance service markings and everything apart from blue light and siren! Gone waaay too far in my opinion!
Anyway, I packed it in, took over 18months to go from interested to qualified with kit bag and i lasted about 4 months! I'll blame that on the new horse and bf!!
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My friend trained but then there were no local jobs and she had to move to get a job. I don't know if its the same everywhere but they seem to train people but then not give them a proper job as I suppose they then get paid more.
 
I know they stopped funding and any training not degree based for a number of years. Not sure if it has restarted yet?
 
As a Tech with the Scottish Service I echo Dusty's comments. My training was intensive over a few months followed by 1yrs probation with on-the-road assessments and half a dozen completely irrelevant essays but they're now going down the Uni route even for Techs here. No off the road study time so fit that in around a 40+ hr week and your family/personal commitments - it puts me off doing the Paramedic training since that is a similar format post-Uni time.

Can only speak for up here but once you're in you're glamorously known as a station "spare" with your rota decided week by week to fill in for absences and annual leave. So no planning ahead and most folk take their nightshifts as a/l so guess who gets to cover it?!!!! 3.5 yrs in, there are still 2 folk to go on the main roster before me so it could easily be the same amount of time again. There are other things which, if you want to know, you can PM and I'll advise. Stuff which I wish I had known before I joined - I'm not sure it would have changed my decision to apply but wouldn't have had such rose-tinted specs :D. You need a thick skin as the banter can be brutal but it's all part of coping with the job.

I love the station I work in, most days are run of the mill and not at all what the training school depicted but once in a while you get a job or wee run of jobs that remind you why you do it and that makes all the nonsense worth it!

Look up the NHS Ambulance Trusts - they all have recruitment sections with info.
 
First responders are a great way into the first on scene Training can be as long or short as your group makes it. We did it last week it was a lot of bookwork one day and lots of scenarios the next I personally think that it should be scenarios both days to make sure you can use the defib and oxygen but that is the way they do it round here.
Oh and you get there first so you may be the one to see someone die or short time dead so you need to be prepared for that.
It was a bit unrealistic in many ways as they seemed to imply that you could save everyone where actually once in need of resuscitation less than 5% survive Still it improves peoples chances by three fold so is a very valuable training
 
Hello, I have been in the job 9 years now and it is a lot different now to what it was then.

Each service is different and has different criteria etc.

There are different grades, Emergency Care Assistant, which does some clinical work, but is mainly a lower paid clinician. There is a technician who can do solo work aswell so is of a higher clinical grade than an ECA. Paramedics who are fully clinically trained and use all the drugs that the JRCALC recommend.

Entry routes so far are for ECA's only who join at Band 3 pay. Technicians are becoming null and void and will either have to train to be Paras or demoted to ECA on protected pay. Paramedics are now recruited from University on a 2 (possibly now 3 year) programme self funded, with practice placements within your local trust. There is limited training in house for paramedics at the moment due to the new changes becoming foundation trusts, but trusts do not have enough Paras, even with the new uni recruits each year, so they will have to review making ECAs and current Techs to paras using a university programme. Career progression at the moment is limited, but with a possible new government etc this may change and the Ambulance council have a habit of changing their minds so in a few years career progression could be available again.

Your best bet if you have family and financial commitments is joining as an ECA. If you do the degree self funded, there is no guarantee you will get a job. Have a look at the Yorkshire Trust website and speak to the HR department.

Echo what the doctor stated. It is not all blood and gore, mostly picking up little old ladies who have fallen and dealing with minor complaints. We do get blood and gore but that is very few and far between. It is long hours, not many weekends off and don't expect to finish on time! Try and do an observer day with a crew, will be an eye opener for you!

It is a fab job and occasionally you do actually save a life!

Good luck :)
 
Not sure if it's different up here in Scotland but this is what I'm doing. I'm doing an access to healthcare course rather than getting my highers (which I left school without and don't want to have to go to college to get!)

I've copied part of the email I received from the recruitment woman:

To become a Paramedic in Scotland, you need to apply to be a Trainee Ambulance Technician first. Please note that you must have held a full driving license for at least 2 years with no more than 3 penalty points.

If successfully employed by the Scottish Ambulance Service through the recruitment process, the first 10 weeks of your employment are spent at the Scottish Ambulance Academy within Glasgow Caledonian University doing the Certificate of Higher Education in Ambulance Studies and you will also do a 3 week Emergency Response driving course. If successfully completed then you are out on the road with a paramedic for a full year as a Trainee Technician, once you have passed the full year and all studies completed, you are a qualified Technician. Once qualified it then allows you to apply to do the Diploma of Higher Education in Paramedic Studies, another 10 weeks back at Glasgow Caledonian University. This also takes one year to complete and once successfully completed, you are then a fully Qualified Paramedic.

But like I say, could be different in England!!
 
anothernewbie said:
However, the ambulance service as a whole (IMO) seem to dislike the scheme, I think because some CFRs like to think they actually are a paramedic! One town near us even has it's own car, proper ambulance service markings and everything apart from blue light and siren! Gone waaay too far in my opinion!
QUOTE]

True! We aren't really fans of CFRs, but to be fair, they do an awesome job and I certainly wouldn't get out of bed at 4am for free!
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