FOI 25-388 Paramedic Roles

Freedom of Information Request

Reference
FOI 25-388 Paramedic Roles
Request Date
08 Sep 2025
Response Date
24 Sep 2025
Information Requested
  1. The number of paramedics within your Trust who hold an enhanced or advanced scope of practice specifically for the delivery of critical or advanced pre-hospital care (e.g., Critical Care Paramedics, Specialist Paramedics in Critical Care, Enhanced Care Paramedics, or equivalent roles). Please provide headcount and WTE if available. 
  1. How these clinicians are deployed (e.g., on dedicated critical care/advanced response vehicles, within HEMS, double-crewed ambulances, rotational models, or other arrangements). 
  1. The ratio of such clinicians to the wider frontline paramedic workforce, or the proportion of the total paramedic workforce they represent. 
  1. The typical operational hours covered by these clinicians (e.g., 24/7, daytime only, rotational). 
  1. Whether your Trust has defined minimum or target levels of critical/advanced care provision, and if so, what these are. 
  1. To what extent provision of enhanced/critical pre-hospital care within your Trust area is delivered by other organisations (e.g., local air ambulance charities or other providers), and whether any formal agreements are in place regarding this provision. 
  1. Any significant planned changes to advanced/critical care provision over the next 12–24 months. 

  

This request is intended to support benchmarking of critical care provision across ambulance trusts. 

Response

Q1 -   We have 25 full-time paramedics who have an enhanced scope of practice for the delivery of critical care. These are divided into: 

  

16 x Advanced Practitioners in Critical Care (APCCs) – solo autonomous practitioners  

9 x Advanced Retrieval Practitioners (ARPs) – work as part of a doctor led pre-hospital critical care team  

In addition, we have 1 x Advanced Practice Lead – Critical Care 

  

In addition to the above, we have 3 APCCs who are registered nurses and 4 ARPs who are registered nurses 

 

Q2 - APCCs – We have 3 teams of APCCs: West (Glasgow), South-East (Edinburgh) and North (Inverness). They are all solo practitioners who respond to critically ill patients in dedicated response vehicles. The West and South-East teams also work on the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) Critical Care Desk and rotate through this as part of their roster.  Our North team also rotate through the Pre-hospital Immediate Care and Trauma Team (PICT) which is a mixed acuity response team partnership between SAS and NHS Highland.  

  

ARPs – Work as part of our ScotSTAR adult retrieval team (EMRS). We have an EMRS North team based in Aberdeen and an EMRS West team based in Glasgow. They are both doctor/ARP teams who provide an advance retrieval service as well as responding to primary critically ill emergencies. The West ARPs also rotate through the SAS CCD. 

 

Q3 - The paramedic numbers above equate to approximately 1% of the current total paramedic workforce.   

Q4 - APCCs - Shifts vary between teams but they generally cover 0700-0200 in the West and North, and 0700-0600 in the South East. 

  

ARPs – The EMRS West team covers 0700-2300 with on-call overnight. The EMRS North team cover 0800-1800 with on-call overnight. 

 

Q5 - No formally defined minimum but are targeted towards times of higher demand. 

 

Q6 - BASICS Scotland – have a range of volunteer responders throughout Scotland, some of whom are able to provide advanced/enhanced critical care 

  

PICT – as stated above, the PICT team is a partnership between the SAS and NHS Highland. The team is made up of a SAS APCC and an NHS Highland doctor. This is a mixed acuity pre-hospital response team who can provide critical care provision in the Scottish Highlands. 

 

Q7 - No significant changes planned within the next 12-24 months 

In This Section