If one were to believe some submissions and the NHHRC Interim Report they could mistakenly think that health care started only at the hospital or clinic door.

Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to on the spot emergency medical services or EMS. Health care should start with the patient at the point of need - and the clinical interventions performed by paramedics (often under extreme conditions) in many cases are what keeps patients alive until they can receive more definitive care.

To underscore the clinical dimensions of EMS, one may note the
wide range of interventions carried out by paramedics every day that
would in almost any other circumstance attract a Medicare benefit
if performed by a practitioner with a provider number.

Yet across Australia, EMS is administered and funded in a myriad of
different ways. It simply doesn’t figure in Commonwealth health
policy discussions and there is no national regulatory scheme
for the various State and private providers.

There is no national practitioner registration regime like other
health professionals (e.g. nursing, medicine) and such as one
finds in the UK or Ireland or which is coming in New Zealand.

The convenient argument in the past seems to have been to
brush off EMS as “a State matter “. That argument should not
obtain in the face of a national health care reform agenda and
demonstrable iniquities in access and quality of EMS care.

Adequate attention needs to be placed on prevention but there
is also a need to recognise the critical role of out of hospital EMS
and a consistent national EMS funding model that is linked to
health outcomes.
Our indigenous, rural and remote populations in particular are
placed at increased risk by the iniquities of funding and consequent
access to qualified paramedics, nurse practitioners and other
allied health professionals.

If EMS is not recognised by government as clinical care with
paramedics operating as health professionals, then there is
something incredibly amiss within the system, and it’s a victory
for vested interests.

So far that’s been the case! The NHHRC Interim Report
doesn’t mention the role of paramedics and EMS in any
material manner - and then one finds that paramedics aren’t
even listed as allied health professionals by the Commonwealth!

In today’s world we need to use our allied health professionals in
the most effective ways and provide multi-skilling across all health
disciplines crucial to effective health care delivery.

We need nationally recognised educational pathways to allow greater
workforce sustainability and mobility with up-skilling and cross-credit
movement between disciplines, employers and clinic/hospital situations.

In the public interest, a sea-change is needed in the level of
recognition afforded to EMS - with national registration of the
paramedic professionals and accreditation of EMS providers
within a national uniform performance framework.