Advanced Paramedic Practitioners in Urgent Care (APPUC) with Nikki and Andrew

In this session Caroline Philips interviews two of the advanced paramedics in urgent care. The conversation includes; their role on a day to day basis, this structure of the scheme and how there time is spent. They also examine how previous pre-hospital roles (such as clinical advise, team leader/manager roles) have helped with the senior clinical role as an APPUC. Nikki and Andrew also catalogue the variety of patients that they see and the in-depth patient focussed history taking and nuanced risk/benefit analysis undertaken. They also discuss some of the skills that the scheme supports such as wound care assessment and closure methods, point of care tests, additional medications and utilisation of alternative referral pathways. Nikki and Andrew also denote the adjunctive education and skills that have been fostered within the APPUC scheme. As the prevailing percentage of demand within pre-hospital care are medical pathologies, this scheme has had bilateral benefit of supporting frontline paramedics and managing patients in the community and avoiding the transfer through to the emergency department where possible. They also denote the change in communication skills that Nikki and Andrew have both witnessed within their practice.  Please enjoy this fantastic episode with two insightful practitioners.