Military Prehospital Emergency Care: defining and professionalising the levels of care provided along the Operational Patient Care Pathway

Abstract

The Defence Medical Services aims to provide gold standard care to ill and injured personnel in the deployed environment and its prehospital emergency care (PHEC) systems have been proven to save lives. The authors have set out to demonstrate, using existing literature, consensus and doctrine that the NHS Skills for Health framework can be reflected in military prehospital care and provides an existing model for defining the levels of care our providers can offer. In addition, we have demonstrated how these levels of care support the Operational Patient Care Pathway and add to the body of evidence for the use of specialist PHEC teams to allow the right patient to be transported on the right platform, with the right medical team, to the right place. These formalised levels allow military planners to consider the scope of practice, amount of training and appropriate equipment required to support deployed operations.