Formation 2000 Region served Ireland | Legal status Active Director Peter Dennehy | |
Headquarters Naas, County Kildare, Ireland | ||
The Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) is an independent statutory organisation responsible for implementing, monitoring and further developing the standards of care provided by all statutory, private and voluntary ambulance services in Ireland. It is also responsible for conducting examinations at six levels of pre-hospital care, the control of ambulance practitioner registration and the publication of clinical practice guidelines.
Contents
Levels of Care
There are six levels of care set down by PHECC. They are divided into Responder levels and Practitioner levels. Currently, all practitioners working on emergency ambulances must be trained to a minimum of PHECC Level 5 (Paramedic) standard. A practitioner working on a non-emergency ambulance must be trained to a minimum of PHECC Level 4 (EMT) standard. Responder levels are suitable for fire service personnel (excluding Dublin Fire Brigade), voluntary ambulance organisations, sports clubs and workplace first aiders.
Responders
Responder levels of care are designed to provide basic medical training to lay people, non-medical emergency services staff (Gardaí, fire services), sports club staff and those designated to provide first aid at work. In addition to this, voluntary ambulance services such as Civil Defence, Order of Malta Ambulance Corps, Irish Red Cross and the St John Ambulance Brigade of Ireland depend on responder training to allow their members provide on-site first aid at the various events they cover. Certain remote communities have set up their own individual Cardiac First Response programmes, where various people in the area are trained to PHECC Level 1 (CFR) standard and are provided with an Automated External Defibrillator. These responders can then be called or paged to the scene of a cardiac arrest to provide CPR and defibrillation, where the increased response time of an ambulance would greatly affect the patient's outcome.
Practitioners
Practitioners must register annually with PHECC to practice their skills. They are bound by various laws, primarily tort law when attending an incident or treating a patient. Upon qualification and registration, a practitioner is issued with a licence and unique PIN which should be presented when treating a patient either on or off-duty. The practitioner's PIN must also be entered on Patient Care Report forms for any incident where the practitioner was involved; this is done for both reference purposes, record-keeping and proof of continuous professional development.
CPG Approved Service Providers
All organisations and companies who are providing an ambulance service in any capacity must register with PHECC as a CPG Approved Service Provider to work to the current edition of Clinical Practice Guidelines published by PHECC. Approved Service Providers are broken down into four categories. 2nd Edition CPG Providers are the Irish Defence Forces and Event Medical Services Ltd. 3rd Edition CPG Providers are listed below.
Citizen CPR campaign
In 2010, PHECC launched a poster-advertising and television-ad campaign aimed at informing the general public of what to do if they should witness an adult suddenly collapse. Its focus was to emphasise the fact that CPR can still be effective without mouth-to-mouth contact. Pocket-sized cards were distributed with instructions on the steps to take:
- Check: check if the person is unresponsive and not breathing.
- Call: Get someone to call 999 or 112 or call them yourself.
- Compress: Push hard and fast in the centre of the chest. Don't stop until help arrives.