Workforce Impact in Practice (WIP) Capture Template
.
Keep brief and focussed, think about what others might find useful to know to help them.
Title of Workforce Impact in
Practice Title?
Technician-to-Paramedic Programme
Name of Lead organisation
(and any partners)
Who was involved?
West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
with:
University of Worcester
Coventry University
Staffordshire University
What was the workforce issue
you were trying to address?
Usually quite short –background
– set scene
eg
Why were you doing it?
What was the challenge you
were facing?
What was the WIP hoping to
achieve?
Our vision was to move from being a traditional
ambulance service that mainly transports the patients it
treats to acute hospitals, to being an emergency
healthcare provider that ensures patients receive the best
possible treatment from the most appropriate provider.
Emergency admissions are costly and frequently
preventable; there is a need to significantly reduce the
number of patients taken to acute emergency
departments. By increasing the number of paramedics
and advanced paramedics who are capable of treating
patients at scene and working with local health
economies to develop alternative care pathways for
patients fewer patients will be taken to an acute hospitals
by the Trust.
Central to achieving this vision is the development of our
staff; increasing the skill mix of our workforce to ensure
that at least 70% of our operational workforce are
educated paramedics which will ensure there is a
paramedic on every vehicle so that every patient receives
the best possible care, first time, every time.
How did you address this
issue?
How did you go about it?
What was involved?
We addressed this by developing an alternative
educational pathway, differing from the traditional direct
entry University programme, for existing WMAS employed
Emergency Medical Technicians.
The Technician-to-Paramedic programme is a bespoke
programme for our existing Emergency Medical
Technicians. A full gap analysis was conducted mapping
the Technician competencies and experiences to design
a fit-for-purpose programme were developed. It is
explicitly designed to meet the needs of West Midlands
Ambulance Technicians and builds upon their wealth of
practical experience as well as their IHCD training course
and enhances their knowledge and skills to the level of a
registered paramedic.
The three HEIs in the West Midlands that deliver
paramedic education (Staffordshire University, Coventry
University, and the University of Worcester) work
collaboratively with the vision of West Midlands being a
centre of excellence for paramedic education.
The West Midlands HEI Consortium is a best practice
model for collaborative working across commissioner,
placement provider and education provider. The HEI
Consortium allows for the HEIs and the Trust to agree the
development & strategic direction of the paramedic
profession, in accordance with evidence based practice,
workforce demands, and operational requirements.
All one day mentor updates & initial training follow the
same programme across the three universities. This
allows students to have harmonised practice placement
experiences regardless of which university the mentor
was educated. In the current economic environment we
are increasingly finding that students are remaining at
home rather than moving into university accommodation.
By having a regional practice placement provision,
students are able to be placed in a practice placement
area that is ‘outside’ their traditional university borders.
Having a regional mentor programme means that our staff
can mentor students no matter what HEI programme the
students are undertaking.
The three universities have agreed and deploy a regional
quality assurance approach that honours each other’s
assessments of clinical education (and pending action
plan) and allow ‘cross-border’ allocation of students.
A regional QA process enables regional allocations –
otherwise each HEI would be required to quality assure
every single station therefore recreating the wheel 3
times.
Through partnership working with our universities, our
paramedics have developed clinical and patient
assessment skills that have given them the knowledge
and confidence to treat more patients in the community
and appropriately refer patients onto alternative care
pathways using our Director of Service [DOS]. Our
paramedic programmes are developing a workforce that
allow clinicians to treat patients at home, offering clinical
advice, referring them to their GP or social services or
take them elsewhere for treatment such as to a minor
injuries unit, walk-in centres or primary care centres.
These developments improve quality and effectiveness by
ensuring our patients receive the most appropriate level
of care to meet their needs.
Optional question-Did you
use any products or services
to help you?
Please feel free to share what
you have used .If you have
used Skills for Health products
or services please explain.
We want to see what ideas you
have used
What did you achieve?
ie What happened?
In 2008, 40% of the clinical workforce was paramedics.
By April 2013, the Trust achieved 63% paramedics.
By October 2014, it is predicted that 66% of the Trust’s
workforce will be made up of Paramedics.
The Trust has been supporting staff development through
the Tech-to-Para pathway since 2008/09 and, since that
time, has supported 494 Technicians to become
Paramedics. This equates to 34% of our current frontline
paramedics have been developed under this pathway, in
partnership with our regional Universities.
West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
is an emergency healthcare provider that strives to
ensure patients receive the best possible treatment from
the most appropriate provider. Only 66% of the patients
seen in 2011/12 were conveyed to an Emergency
Department or Primary Care Centre. This number
continues to reduce with the Trust’s target in 2013/14 set
at conveyances to be around 57% by March 2014.
What was the WIPs impact?
(Clear demonstration of impact
of change .eg. the workforce,
service delivery on
patients/service users.
Cost/quantity/quality,
productivity, Return on
Investment, staffing/clinical time
saved, potential benefits.
Data and any measures will be
useful as will qualitative and
and quantitative outcomes.
Our workforce programme aims to develop the whole
workforce. It ensures that 70% of our operational
workforce is clinically qualified and that there is a
paramedic on every response vehicle by 2015/16. Having
a paramedic on every vehicle will avoid using paramedics
to back up technician part-qualified crews, thereby
improving the patient care and experience as well as
reducing cost by reducing the number of multiple
responses. Paramedics are also able to support the 30%
support staff with their clinical supervision. This enables
us to treat more patients in the community ourselves; to
make informed decisions about the destination of those
patients that cannot be treated by our staff; and respond
with more single ambulance responses. This Strategy
aimed to provide the most appropriate care in every
situation, deliver care closer to home and transport fewer
patients to acute hospitals A&E departments.
A 70% clinically qualified paramedic workforce would
ensure that there was a paramedic on every response
vehicle by 2015/16. Having a paramedic on every vehicle
would avoid the need to deploy a further paramedic
resource to back up Emergency Medical Technician partqualified crews, thereby improving the patient care and
experience as well as reducing cost by reducing the
number of multiple responses, and meets our national
skill mix commitment for ambulance services in England.
This enables us to treat more patients in the community
ourselves; to make informed decisions about the
destination of those patients that cannot be treated by our
staff; and treat patients with more single ambulance
responses.
Hints and tips for others
Share some of the
things/insights that you think will
help others trying to do the
same sort of thing
What will you use the prize
for?
Please tell us how you would
use the prize in your
The three HEIs work collaboratively towards the vision of
West Midlands being a centre of excellence for paramedic
education.
Effective partnership working within the West Midlands
ensures consistent and high quality paramedic education
across the region. All members work in partnership to
share best practice for the best outcome of both the
profession and the quality of paramedic education within
the region.
We would use the Android Tablets to aid our mentors in
their on-going learning & development. Our clinical
mentors are key to our success and are at the heart of
organisation
our organisational change. Our mentors are critical to the
on-going development of the Trust and our staff and we
would like to be able to recognise their efforts.
In completing this template
are you happy to share with
the members of My Health
Skills and Skills for Health
Networks?
Yes
Name and Contact details of
person completing template
Name: Jennifer Zandbeek
Title: Learning & Development Manager
Organisation: West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS
Foundation Trust
Address:
Tel no: 01384 246 335
Email: Jennifer.zandbeek@wmas.nhs.uk
Many thanks for completing this.
Please return via email to myhealthskills@skillsforhealth.org.uk