London swoops on Australian paramedics

Abstract

It was the online commentary around this time last year titled ‘London’s calling our paramedics’ by Karen Keast that raised interest in different sections of Australia (1). The article discussed the growing demand on the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (LAS) and the need for the service to look overseas for qualified or newly graduated paramedics. Ambulance demand is an aspect that we can relate to here in Australia but the shortage of newly graduated paramedics is not an issue in Australia. Anecdotally, paramedic degrees have been extremely popular and numbers of new ambulance paramedic graduates in Australia has increased disproportionately to the jobs available. So why has this lack of paramedic graduates occurred in the United Kingdom (UK)? Ultimately it came down to professional registration and the commitment that LAS has made to have more registered healthcare professionals overseeing patient care in the UK. Support from the government saw the LAS granted permission to sponsor work visas for non-European paramedics.