BASICS Scotland

British Association for Immediate Care Scotland

BASICS Scotland logo
Formation	1977 / 2002
Type	Charitable organisation
Legal status	Charity
Headquarters	Sandpiper House, Aberuthven Enterprise Park, Aberruthven, PH3 1EL
Region	United Kingdom
Chairperson	Duncan Tripp
Vice Chairperson	David Currie
CEO	Lorna Duff
Website	basics-scotland.org.uk

The British Association for Immediate Care Scotland (BASICS Scotland) is an organisation involved with prehospital care. It has the aims of providing encouragement and aid with the formation of immediate care schemes and to provide training to support those working in prehospital care. It shares its origins with the British Association for Immediate Care (BASICS), a similar organisation which has UK wide coverage.. In 1993, the British Association for Immediate Care began running prehospital care courses in Scotland, which were met with a warm welcome and it became clear there was a large audience for such education,^[1] especially in remote and rural areas of Scotland. This need for training and organisational leadership became clearer after the 1994 Scotland RAF Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre. This led to the training provided by BASICS to be modified for a more rural setting, and to the development of BASICS Scotland as a separate organisation in 2002.

BASICS Scotland's charitable activities span two distinct areas in relation to prehospital care;

1. Support of the voluntary responder network of doctors, nurses and paramedics who attend 999 emergency calls across Scotland,^[2] and
2. The innovation and provision of high quality education in the field of prehospital and Emergency medicine.

Notable Individuals[]

Throughout the history of BASICS Scotland there have been a number of individuals, notable for their huge contributions to prehospital care in Scotland.

• Prof Colville Laird FIMC (RCSEd) MBE - Founder and later medical director of BASICS Scotland until 2018. He is an expert in prehospital care, particularly in relation to rural Scotland^[3][4][5][6] and major incident management.^[7]
• Dr Richard Price FRCA FFICM DipIMC (RCSEd) - Clinical Director and Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care.
• Mr Duncan Tripp OBE, Winchman Paramedic, Board of Directors ^{[8][9][10][11]}
• Dr Luke Regan - BMed FCEM DipRTM - Clinical Lead PICT Team, Inverness^[12]

History[]

BASICS Scotland originally formed as part of the British Association for Immediate Care, which was established in June 1977.^[13] Kenneth Easton, a General Practitioner, was the first chairman of the organisation.^[14] Initially it was formed from the existing schemes. The organisation then offered individual membership to doctors that had an interest in immediate care, such as those working in General Practice, Surgery, Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Anaesthesia and Critical Care. Associate membership was open to paramedics and nurses which later again changed to offering full membership recognising the changing roles of these professions. In 1991, the organisation increased their involvement in educational aspects, making available residential courses covering pre-hospital care and resuscitation.^[15] Since then BASICS Scotland has become fully independent from BASICS^[16] and has diversified its educational provision across Scotland.

Prehospital Responding[]

BASICS Scotland Doctor in the Hebrides, Scotland

Prehospital Volunteers[]

BASICS Scotland is an association of health care professionals, who undertake additional training as immediate care practitioners.^[2] The members provide their services in support of the statutory or voluntary ambulance services.^[17][18] BASICS Scotland in coordination with The Sandpiper Trust is also a keen promoter of first aid and emergency prehospital care.^[19]

BASICS Scotland responders, many of whom are General Practitioners,^[20][21] are able to offer additional skills and resources to the other statutory and voluntary emergency services.^[22][23] In this role, responders are dispatched by the Scottish Ambulance Service control room, and many responders carry radios or telephones with tracking capabilities to allow control room staff to know when a responder is in close proximity to an incident. These responders are integrated into the pan-Scotland trauma network.^[24] Responders who are medical doctors on the General Medical Council register may use emergency Green Beacons on their car to alert other road users intentions (although such lights do not provide exemptions from road traffic law).^[25]

BASICS Scotland responders have been present at many serious incidents across Scotland for many years, including:

• Bus crashes^[26][27] and other traffic collisions^[28][29][30]
• Mountain Rescue incidents^[31][32]

PICT Team[]

Response car used by PICT Team

BASICS Scotland also provided initial, and now ongoing, support to the Highland PICT Team, a prehospital enhanced care team working in the North of Scotland.^[33] This resource, described as "world class" by a Professor of Rural Health^[34] provides a physician and advanced practitioner team which responds to major trauma and medical illness across North Scotland.^[35][36] In light of the "sparsely distributed ambulance resources in the Highlands"^[37] and the challenges of distance and adverse weather in the North West of Scotland which hampers aeromedical activities, PICT has a considerable remit beyond major trauma.

PICT provides support to ambulance crews and community responders in medical emergencies, and also provides a “see and treat” service to patients in order to prevent transport and possible hospital admission for problems manageable at home. In this way PICT acts as a Senior Decision Maker for prehospital clinicians across the North of Scotland. The role of the Advanced Practitioner is to support PICT clinicians in managing trauma and medical emergencies, including blue light driving to attend these calls. ARPs are rostered on duty with PICT, but also respond as an Advanced Paramedic response car outside the hours of PICT operation. This response provides additional backup to local cardiac arrest incidents, major trauma and other complex emergencies.

The PICT Team currently operates 12 hours per day, and provides a 7-day service year round. Providing a variety of enhanced care services such as Pre-hospital ultrasound, Cardioversion, Sedation and prehospital Amputation. The doctor on the PICT Care will also assume the role of the Medical Incident Officer when required at a major incident.^[38] Members of the PICT Team have also been invited speakers at a number of medical conferences^{[citation needed]}.

PICT Funding Crisis[]

In 2022, NHS Highland announced they would defund the PICT Team, in steps which will leave the Highlands and Inverness without a 7-day physician-lead enhanced care service.^[39][40] The nearest similar service being over 100 miles drive away in Aberdeen in the form of Emergency Medical Retrieval Service, although that service is primarily for medical retrieval work, rather than responding to 999 calls and providing community medicine to facilitate admission avoidance.

COP26 Conference Medical Centre 2021[]

In 2021, BASICS Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service ran a medical centre for attendees at the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, during October and November 2021.^[41][42] The medical centre was successful at managing a high percentage of patients at the conference and avoiding unnecessary burdens on surrounding NHS services. Jason Leitch and Humza Yousaf both visited the medical centre during the COP26 conference.^[43][44]

Educational Activity[]

Bullseye damage to windscreen during a simulation scenario

BASICS Scotland provides a number of face-to-face and online courses as well as annual conferences. It also has a voice at national level^[45] and direct involvement with the work of the Royal College of Surgeons in relation to their Faculty of Prehospital Care. Training provided by the organisation has also included the use of a simulation vehicle to practice extrication of casualties who have been involved in a car crash.^[46] The organisations has also delivered bespoke training courses, to audiences such as dental practitioners, individual GP practices, Occupational Health Doctors and Nurses, Custody Doctors and Immigration Centre Health Practitioners. They have also been involved in public health messages related to acute illness and injury.^[47]

Conferences[]

BASICS Scotland holds annual conferences covering a range of topics of interest to those involved in prehospital and rural emergency care. These conferences are usually held in Aviemore, Scotland. In light of the global pandemic, the 2021 conference was a Virtual Conference focusing on Hypothermia.^[48] This was attended by delegates from around the world, and recordings of the talks were placed online for members of BASICS Scotland to view.

Conference Themes

• 2014 - Legal Highs
• 2015 - Back to Basics
• 2016 - The Evidence, The Practice
• 2017 - Cardiac Arrest: It Takes a System to Save a Life
• 2018 - Prehospital Care: Across the Generations
• 2019 - Prehospital Trauma
• 2021 - Hypothermia (Virtual Conference)^[49]
• 2022 - Challenging Scenes and Situations (Virtual Conference)

Courses[]

Simulated Road Traffic Collision Training

BASICS Scotland run a number of courses;

• Prehospital Emergency Care Course (PhEC):^[50] The material covered and assessed is based on the RCSEd material from the “ Foundation Material For Prehospital Care ” manual from the . The course is open to doctors, nurses and paramedics who work, or have an interest in working in, the pre-hospital environment.
• PHPLS: The Prehospital Paediatric Life Support^[51] course is accredited by the ALSG. It aims to provide the knowledge and practical procedures necessary for assessment and effective treatment of childhood emergencies prior to hospital admission.
• GIC
• Custody Suite Training^[52]
• MIMMS
• HMIMMS
• Tele-Education^[53]
• Remote Skills
• Portfolio Project^[54][55]

Podcasts[]

The organisation also produce a suite of podcasts, which included various guest speakers form other emergency services, such as Police Scotland and HM Coastguard. These have covered a wide range of topics such as traumatic and paediatric cardiac arrest management, forensic considerations for responders and prehospital analgesia.

Medical Students[]

BASICS Scotland aims to undertake annual teaching for medical students; having previously taught students from Dundee University, University of St Andrews and University of Central Lancashire.

The Role the Sandpiper Trust[]

The Sandpiper Logo on a responder's jacket

The Sandpiper Trust is a charity formed to provide remote and rural medical (and paramedical) practitioners with equipment that would allow them to safely provide high quality immediate care at the scene of an illness or accident.^[56] The organisation has also supported leaps forwards in prehospital care in Scotland.^[5] An early benefit of this organisation was the bespoke design of the Sandpiper Bag specifically for rural prehospital care.

The Sandpiper Bag is now the recognised standard pre-hospital care equipment in Scotland and is used extensively on the BASICS Scotland courses. It is also the being used on the prehospital Diploma examinations by the Faculty of Prehospital Care, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.^[57] Sandpiper Bags have also made their way to Australia with the development of Sandpiper Australia.^[58]

See also[]

• Air ambulances in the United Kingdom
• Ambulance services in the United Kingdom
• Prehospital Care

Other Scottish emergency and non-emergency services:

• NHS 24
• Police Scotland
• Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• PICT Team Twitter