Abstract
Pre-hospital obstetric incidents account for a significant number of emergency calls to the ambulance service, with obstetric emergencies being one of the most challenging situations that pre-hospital practitioners encounter. The mortality associated to obstetric emergencies has shown significant decline over recent years due to improved obstetric education, advances in surgery and improved maternal care. Additionally, the development of the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH) has identified patterns of sub-optimal practice and has provided recommendations on how to improve the maternity services and obstetric care available to all pregnant patients. One of the most influential recommendations to come out of this document was the apparent need to improve education of basic, intermediate and advanced life support in obstetric emergencies, which lead to the introduction of advanced obstetrics and gynaecology becoming compulsory elements within the paramedic curriculum. The need for organisation and ambulance trusts to provide specialist training into obstetric emergencies was also identified within this enquiry (Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health, 2007; Advanced Life Support Group, 2010). In order facilitate the development of prehospital obstetric education; several programmes have been written which allowed for paramedics to maintain their continuous personal development through the competition of a short ‘crash course’ in obstetric care. One of the most successful courses of this type available to prehospital clinicians is the pre-hospital emergency training course (POET) delivered by the advanced life support group. Within this article, a review of this course will take place in order for readers to gain an understanding into the course content and the benefits of undertaking such course as part of the clinician’s continuous personal development. The authors of this article have recently completed the POET course, held in Manchester, which was the inspiration for this piece.
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