New critical care service to launch in Wales

By The Press Association16th March 2015News WalesAccident and Emergency, News Wales, NHS

Medics who are part of a new “military style” rapid response team in Wales will be able to take blood to casualties in what is a world first.

The multi-agency Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service (EMRTS) Cymru launches next month and sees some of the kind of medical skills usually used on the battleground brought to civilian life.

The EMRTS will bring together a new flying doctors service, A&E specialists from the NHS and critical care experts such as advanced nurses and paramedics.

Officials say the team will be able to deal with a wide raft of life-or-death situations including mass casualty events.

The team will have a fleet of Audi Q7s 4×4 vehicles on hand and will also be able to fly with the Wales Air Ambulance.

Wales’ Deputy Minister for Health Vaughan Gething witnessed the EMRTS team in action during a live training exercise at the Ministry of Defence’s Caerwent training facility in south Wales.

He said: “EMRTS Cymru will be one of, if not the most, comprehensively equipped pre-hospital teams in the world in terms of personnel, equipment, blood products, drug, diagnostics and data collection.

“It will transform our ability to provide the very best care to the most critically-ill patients in Wales.

“It will provide patients in remote and rural areas of Wales with rapid access to the skills of a consultant in emergency or intensive care medicine, who are equipped to provide life-saving, specialist critical care.

“The establishment of this team will support the reconfiguration of specialist services in Wales, ensuring that emergency services for the sickest and most seriously-injured patients are safe and sustainable for the future, while also improving clinical outcomes for patients.”

The EMRTS Cymru critical care team will operate from the Wales Air Ambulance’s Swansea and Welshpool airbases and the cars will be based strategically across Wales.

Officials say it will be able to reach 95% of the population by air and 46% by road within 30 minutes.

Due to the advanced resuscitation equipment the helicopters and cars carry, they will be able to travel much further and safer with a critically injured casualty than ever before.

The Welsh Government said it will provide £2.868 million from 2015-16 to support EMRTS Cymru’s critical care team.

Welsh Government officials hope the pioneering new service will go in some way to answering its detractors claiming the NHS is being poorly run in Wales.

Prime Minister David Cameron has launched several attacks on the Welsh Labour administration’s running of the health service – once claiming that Offa’s Dyke was a line between life and death.

There have also been several demonstrations on the steps of the Senedd about so-called “reconfiguration” of the NHS in Wales – plans opposition parties say will see some hospitals being downgraded.

But given the cut to the Welsh Government’s budget by its paymaster the UK Government it means Cardiff Bay ministers have had to be more savvy with public finances.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: “The critical care team will be able to respond to medical and traumatic emergencies at the scene, including the provision of medical support at major incidents and mass casualty events.

“They will also be able to provide blood and blood products, such as plasma, at the scene of an emergency.

“This a unique feature for Wales and not available outside the military elsewhere in the world and is being run in close collaboration with the Welsh Blood Service.

“Another key feature will be the use a so-called ‘integrated data collection system’ which means the hospital or control room can be live linked to the casualty via mobile telecommunications equipment.”

The Wales Air Ambulance said getting consultants on board its aircraft was a remarkable leap forward – and would provide one of the “most advanced air ambulance services in the world”.

But its chief executive Angela Hughes said the air ambulance would still continue to be run as a charity.

She added: “Over the past few years we have received incredible support from our fundraisers to upgrade our three helicopters and trial night flights.

“The addition of doctors to Wales Air Ambulance missions is another fantastic development in our service to people across Wales.

“But we still need to raise more than £6 million in charitable donations every year to keep the helicopters flying, so we are appealing for everyone to support Wales’ flying doctors.”