With a vision of being open, approachable and supportive, Outreach gives professionals and students alike, an opportunity to collaborate, reflect, learn and improve, all for the benefit of our patients.

The project exists not only to forge and improve relations across the emergency services community, but also to inspire those caring for critically ill or critically injured patients to continue improving their practice and be given the foundation to pursue a career in pre-hospital critical care medicine.

Outreach is all about teamwork. It involves joint training days, presentations, group discussions, workshops and scenarios which explain and demonstrate the capabilities of our team. It encourages integration and communication and has forged collaborative working practices with many of our emergency services colleagues. This has enabled better decision making when tasking assets to assist a patient and helps a receiving hospital better prepare for a patient's arrival.

Every member of our clinical team is an advocate of the Outreach project. Their dedication, commitment and sheer determination have had an instrumental impact on saving lives and improving patient pathways.

Immersive educational days have been created, enabling us to engage with many different organisations locally including: universities, community responder groups, ambulance service employees, young lifeguards and students within paramedic, medical and nursing backgrounds.

Collaborations have also been forged with our inter-agency colleagues (HM Maritime and Coastguard Search and Rescue, Fire and Rescue Service, Police Firearms & HART Teams), many of which have included intense and challenging simulated training exercises which help to identify the different ways of working and the type of equipment carried by all parties.

Engagement and Interaction

We recognise there is a vast skill mix that exists; from control centre dispatchers and volunteer community first responders to experienced PHEM doctors working with other air ambulances and all the ambulance service crews, fire service personnel, police and coastguard representatives to name a few.

The DSAA critical care team have created a strategy of structured engagement events including talks at regional centres and joint training exercises at Henstridge Airfield, our airbase and in different pre-hospital care environments. These are in addition to the invitation to attend our monthly clinical governance meetings and discuss cases with us so that we can learn together to improve patient care.

Get in touch

If you are one of our emergency services colleagues or student and would like to find out more about outreach and how you can get involved, please email: [email protected]