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In General
There are around 17 Ambulance Services covering the UK and it's
islands at the moment. These are part of the National Health Service. Each cover a specific geographical area. Paramedics in the
UK are now required to be state registered (like nurses) and Ambulance Services must only employ registered paramedics. The
registering body (The Health Professions Council) is now responsible for assessing the skills
of overseas EMTs who wish to move here. This is a new body and they plan to allow overseas EMTs to register before they even get
here (this will probably be around £200 to do so) and their skills and experience will be assessed. This means that your
qualifications may even let you work in the UK as a paramedic without having to start all over again. Your qualification can also
be recognised by the body which awards Ambulance Education Certificates in the UK (Edexcel). There is a link to the relevant page
on their site at the bottom of the page. This is a big shift in position for the UK EMS and is good news for the UK Services
as very few overseas EMTs work here and this narrows the Services views and means good ideas and practice from other countries
don't get aired here. There are a number of other requirements like a full clean category C1 & D1 driving licence. You must have these categories on your licence to drive Ambulance vehicles. You must have
held this for two years before you apply. Certain overseas licences can sometimes allow you to swap for a full UK licence. You
need to visit the DVLA site to see if your driving licence can be swapped for a UK one, and whether you'll get the appropriate categories on your new UK licence.
Sometimes Services will also have a fitness test. Not hard - don't worry! The next thing you need to do (if you already
haven't) is join our vacancy mailing list. For many years the Ambulance Services in the UK
have remained autonomous in that they didn't integrate with other areas of the Health service at all. That has changed over the
past two years or so. You are now seeing some Paramedics working in a hospital ward, on the very rare occasion, and some Service
members are taking up positions in hospitals as managers etc.
This is also good news for you as there is a lot
more movement and staff turnover than there used to be. You can write to UK Services and ask for your application to be held on
file for any suitable positions. Some services are good at this some are not. You may be surprised to hear that some Ambulance
Services are notoriously bad communicators. So if you hear of a vacancy don't rely on them finding your letter in a file
somewhere. Apply as you would have done reminding them that you have previously written in and asked to be kept on file. There is
a list of all UK Services on our site.
If you cannot wait till the HPC allows overseas
EMTs to register to work in the UK then you will probably have to start by getting a 'foot in the door' with the Service you
choose. If you have to start at the bottom then a 'foot in the door' is the key to
success in the UK Ambulance Services. You are far more likely to be successful in getting onto accident
and emergency duties if you are already a member of the Service concerned. Control room people, supplies, secretarial, and people
from other areas within the UKs Ambulance Services have progressed onto accident and emergency duties quickly. This is because
vacancies are advertised internally and mostly never reach the local press or job centre. So if you can hack it for a while, get
yourself a job anywhere in the Service you are interested in. The most popular route is to start on
the Patient Transport role (Mini-bus type ambulances which take people to hospital appointments etc.) and then to progress on
to Accident and emergency duties as an Ambulance Technician. (Ambulanceman in old language). There is generally a two year
wait in that role before you can apply to train as a paramedic, but this is now tending to be dropped and you can usually apply
after one year on the road.
If you do have to start from scratch the
training is intense, but if you've done anatomy or biology at school, or if you are a health professional/EMT
already then you should find some of the stuff pretty easy. The current salaries are around £13,000 - £15,000 for
Patient transport. £19,000 - £26,800 for Technicians and £25,800 - £30,000 for Paramedics. The possibilities thereafter are
training, managerial or specialist roles like clinical audit etc. Like any job if you've got flair you'll get on. We
have two downloads with other info which you may be helpful (M/S Word):
You can find out more about having your
qualification recognised by Edexcel at: http://www.edexcel.org.uk/VirtualContent/31803.pdf (PDF format)
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