Our projects
Since the creation of the PHOTON pre-hospital care collaborative research group in November 2017, the group has gone from strength to strength. There are now over 120 members and representation from every Air Ambulance organisation in the country.
Pre Hospital Research DELPHI
The purpose of this study is to establish national research priorities for pre-hospital critical care. The study will allow the researchers to identify the most important research questions which will guide future research across the United Kingdom, helping improve pre-hospital emergency care delivery.
This has been undertaken as a Delphi study, which took place in three stages.
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Participant information sheet
TETRIS
Trauma Emergency Thoracotomy for Resuscitation in Shock (TETRiS) is a national service evaluation which aims to ascertain current practice across the UK with regards to resuscitative thoracotomy for trauma. This was conducted across almost all MTCs in the country and all HEMS services and includes all thoracotomies undertaken between 1st Feb 2022-31st Jan 2023. The project was conducted as a joint collaborative effort with the National Trauma Research and Innovation Collaborative (NaTRIC) and the Trainee Emergency Research Network (TERN). We are in the process of collating the data and results will be published in due course.
For a more in depth snapshot of the protocol, please see the below link which takes you to the published protocol.
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PHEA: cohort study
Pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia in the United Kingdom: an observational cohort study
Up to one in eight trauma patients arrive at a hospital with a partially or completely obstructed airway. The UK National Institute for health and Care Excellence (NICE) practice guidelines recommend that trauma patients requiring anaesthesia for definitive airway management receive this care within 45 min of an emergency call, preferably at the incident scene. How frequently this target is achieved remains unclear. We assessed the recorded time to pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia after trauma across UK helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) units.
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Geo-temporal provision of PHEA
Geo-temporal provision of pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia by UK Helicopter Emergency Medical Services: an observational cohort study
Pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia (PHEA) is frequently required for injured patients. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) quality standards state that PHEA should be delivered within 45 min of an emergency call. We investigated whether there is geo-temporal variation in service provision to the UK population.​
POCUS
Point of care ultrasound (POCUS) has become a common practice in prehospital care over the last 10 years. There is lack of literature on its use and governance structure in United Kingdom (UK) prehospital care services. We aimed to survey the use, governance of prehospital POCUS among UK prehospital services and perceptions of clinicians and services regarding its utility and barriers to its implementation.
FONA qualitative study
This project is a qualitative study looking at how the cognitive and affective processes interact with the decision making to perform an emergency front of neck airway in Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine. The aim is to develop a greater understanding of any cognitive processes and barriers, and causes for any reluctance to perform this life-saving intervention in the pre-hospital setting. By identifying these issues and disseminating this information, the project aims to inform strategies to help overcome these issues.