999 care guidelines plan

Ambulance staff are the frontline of care

National guidelines are expected to be introduced to ensure ambulance staff are provided with the same basic training and equipment.

The move follows a survey which highlighted significant variations between services in health board areas throughout the UK.

Staff in rural areas often get permission to carry-out complicated life-saving procedures, while paramedics in the city tend to operate a "scoop and run" service.

Equipment varied from area to area

All 39 ambulance trusts in the UK were asked what medical equipment was carried on frontline ambulances.

While most carried the same basic equipment, there were significant discrepancies between areas.

Only one in five ambulance services routinely carried nasal airways, used to deliver oxygen to patients with facial muscle spasm.

And a quarter of services did not carry the appropriate oxygen mask.

What has happened in some services is that there is a lot of local variation

Andrew Marsden, Scottish Ambulance Service

In Scotland, the main differences were found between those who worked in the rural areas and those in the cities.

In more remote parts, crews are allowed to carry out delicate medical procedures once they have secured permission from a consultant.

In cities, where a hospital is perhaps only 10 minutes away, ambulances tend to aim toward picking up a patient in as short a time as possible.

It is hoped the new guidelines will mean that, if two different services are called to the same accident, they are able to carry out the same procedures to the same standard.

Basic standard

The move has been welcomed by Andrew Marsden, chief medical advisor for the Scottish Ambulance Service.

"All paramedics in the UK are trained to the same basic standard, but what has happened in some services is that there is a lot of local variation," he said.

"In some services you could have some paramedics practising a procedure of a certain type, and in a neighbouring service they are not able to do that.

"That has been the source of some confusion in the past."