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Job types

• Emergency Care Assistants (ECAs) and Emergency Care Support Workers (ECSWs) -

  Emergency Care Assistants (ECAs) and Emergency Care Support Workers (ECSWs) - drive ambulances under emergency conditions and support the work of qualified ambulance technicians and paramedics. We have 33 Emergency Care Assistants (ECAs) and 109 Emergency Care Support Workers (ECSWs)

• Technicians

  Technicians - respond to emergency calls as well as a range of planned and unplanned non-emergency cases. They support paramedics during the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of patients and during the journey to hospital. We have 957 technicians

• Paramedics

  Paramedics – respond to emergency calls and deal with complex non–emergency hospital admissions, discharges and transfers. They work as part of a rapid response unit, usually with support from an ambulance technician or ECA or ECSW. They meet people’s need for immediate care or treatment. We have 550 paramedics.

• Paramedic Practitioners (PP)

  Paramedic Practitioners (PPs) - are paramedics who have undergone additional education and training to equip them with greater patient assessment and management skills. They are able to diagnose a wide range of conditions and are skilled to treat many minor injuries and illnesses. PPs are also able to “signpost” care – referring patients to specialists in the community such as GPs, community nurses or social care professionals. They can also refer patients to hospital specialists, thus avoiding the need to be seen in A&E first. We currently have 52 qualified paramedic practitioners plus an additional 60 student paramedic practitioners.

• Critical Care Paramedics (CCP)

  Critical Care Paramedics (CCPs) - are paramedics who have undergone additional education and training to work in the critical care environment, both pre-hospitally and by undertaking Intensive Care transfers between hospitals. Often working alongside doctors at the scene, they can treat patients suffering from critical illness or injury, providing intensive support and therapy, and ensuring the patient is taken rapidly and safely to a hospital that is able to treat their complex needs. They are able to assess and diagnose illness and injuries and treat patients using more powerful drugs and use equipment on scene that up to now was only used in hospital. We have 22 critical care paramedics (including five seconded to the air ambulance), with a further eight student critical care paramedics.

• Emergency Dispatch Centre Staff

  Emergency Dispatch Centre staff – more than 500 staff work in the Trust’s three Emergency Dispatch Centres in a variety of roles including Emergency Call Operators, Dispatchers, Duty Dispatch Managers and Clinical Desk staff. These staff are responsible for receiving every one of the emergency calls received from the Trust, providing support and clinical advice to callers as needed and co-ordinating the most appropriate response to send to the patient.

• Community Responders

  Community Responders – are volunteers who are members of the public, members of partner emergency services or off-duty members of SECAmb staff. They are all trained and equipped by the ambulance service to provide and deliver time-critical, life-saving skills in their local areas before the arrival of a SECAmb clinician. We now have 887 community responders working in networks across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

• Critical Care Doctors

  Critical Care Doctors - often provided in partnership with the Kent, Surrey, Sussex Air Ambulance Trust and working in a team which includes a SECAmb CCP, are increasingly called to treat seriously injured patients. There are two of these units; Marden in Kent and Dunsfold in Surrey. In addition, the Trust also calls upon other services provided by charities including the Surrey and Sussex Immediate Care Scheme, SIMCAS.

• Support staff

  Our operational frontline staff are supported by over 500 non-clinical staff who work in the Trust’s ‘back office’ functions including finance, human resources, service development and corporate affairs, information management and technology, education and training, technical services and logistics, clinical governance and communications.

• Patient Transport

  We also provide non-emergency patient transport services (PTS) to take patients to and from NHS facilities for appointments, treatment, and hospital admission. They also carry out non-urgent transfers between hospitals and discharge from hospital to home. All PTS staff are trained in basic life support should one of their patients need emergency care.