Dr. Cathal O'Donnell:

Deputy Ciara Conway was concerned about the role of the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council, a statutory body that is independent of the Health Service Executive. Broadly, the council is analogous to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland and the Irish Medical Council. It sets standards for the pre-hospital care sector and has three main areas of activity. It sets clinical practice guidelines which are the algorithms to which all of our staff and the staff of other ambulance services operate. For example, if an ambulance crew was called to a person with asthma, it would operate to the clinical practice guideline or CPG for asthma. The same applies in the case of patients with chest pain, head injuries and so forth. The clinical practice guideline outlines the standard of care, drug treatment and level of clinical care required to administer the drug in question.

A second function of the council is to administer the professional register for all staff working in this area. In the same way that I must maintain registration with the Irish Medical Council, paramedics, advanced paramedics and emergency medical technicians must maintain registration with the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council.

The third and most significant function of the council is to set standards for the educational institutions which train advanced paramedics, paramedics, emergency medical technicians and others such as cardiac first responders who complete a one-day training course that is primarily aimed at laypersons.

While the council performs several other roles, its main activity is to regulate the sector in which we work through the three streams of activity I have outlined.