Advice on working at Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Career Opportunities for healthcare professionals

HEMS Paramedics

Yorkshire Air Ambulance has a very close relationship with Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust (YAS). All the paramedics working at Yorkshire Air Ambulance are internally seconded by YAS. Prior to application, candidates must have 3 years of paramedic experience as a minimum before considering the post.

After an intensive application and recruitment process, a number of paramedics become HEMS paramedics for a period of between 2 – 3 years dependent on current circumstances. The HEMS paramedic has the ability to operate autonomously using a range of critical care skills which include administering ketamine, midazolam, blood, magnesium and calcium along with having the ability to perform surgical procedures such as thoracotomy, surgical airway and advanced decision making. They also operate alongside a Critical Care Doctor to form the Yorkshire Critical Care Team (CCT). A key function of the Critical Care Team is to provide Pre-Hospital Emergency Anaesthesia (PHEA), the HEMS Paramedic is a trained assistant in PHEA.

Critical Care Team Doctors

The Critical Care Team (CCT) is operational for 12 hours every day and is based at the Nostell Air Support Unit. The team comprises two HEMS/CCT paramedics and a CCT doctor. The Yorkshire Air Ambulance allows the team to quickly get to critically ill and injured patients across the whole of Yorkshire and Humberside. The CCT are able to undertake a number of advanced interventions including prehospital emergency anaesthesia, advanced analgesia, administration of blood and a number of surgical procedures, including prehospital thoracotomy. All the Doctors are Consultant level practitioners. At present all our doctors either work in Emergency Medicine or Anaesthesia and Critical Care. Their base speciality remains their full-time job, and they are seconded to the CCT on a part-time basis for two years. These jobs are advertised on the NHS jobs website prior to the secondment. The main eligibility criteria include having at least 5 years of prehospital care experience, the ability to safely deliver a prehospital emergency anaesthetic and being able to pass a specified fitness test.

Medical electives/placements/shadowing opportunities

For a variety of operational reasons, Yorkshire Air Ambulance are unable to offer any other placement opportunities for students or healthcare professionals. This includes medical student electives, shadowing opportunities for Doctors in training and for Paramedics. Prior to the recruitment of new HEMS Paramedics, we do offer open evenings for potential candidates to visit the air support unit but this is all dealt with via the recruitment process. Therefore anyone interested in becoming a YAA Paramedic in the future, must first start their career through YAS.

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