As a nurse you will be one of the first healthcare professionals to arrive at a range of emergency and non-emergency situations. You will be the senior member of a two-person ambulance crew, with an emergency care assistant to support you responding to 999 calls. However, you might work on your own, using a rapid response vehicle to reach your patients.

When you arrive at the scene of an emergency, you will assess the patient’s condition and take potentially lifesaving decisions about any treatment needed before the patient is transferred to hospital. For example, you might be called to a Road traffic Collision with multiple casualties some of whom may have sustained major trauma, to a shopping centre for somebody in cardiac arrest or an elderly person in their home with a suspected stroke. You will then start giving the treatment, with the assistance of your crewmate.

In non-life-threatening situations, you’ll also have to use your professional judgment to make key clinical decisions often in conjunction with other health care professionals using your knowledge of urgent care pathways available to you to provide the best route to care for your patient. For example, you might be called to an elderly person who has fallen and sustained a wound to their leg, who you then refer to a Specialist Practitioner for wound management and the Urgent Community Response service to assess their ongoing mobility and social needs.

You will be trained to drive what is in effect a mobile emergency clinic and to resuscitate and / or stabilise patients using sophisticated techniques, equipment and drugs.

As well as contact with your patients, you will also deal with patients’ relatives and members of the public, some of whom might be hysterical or aggressive. You will also often work alongside the police and fire service.

Based at a local ambulance station along with other emergency crews, you will work shifts, including evenings and weekends, going out in all weathers at all hours of the night or day.

Ambulance Nurses joining us will undertake our Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Course where you develop your knowledge, skills and attributes to deliver care in this environment. The course includes:

• Classroom based clinical course
• Supernumerary practice placement with Work-Based Assessment
• Emergency Driving course
• Supported Preceptorship period with completion of a practice portfolio

These are some of the essential criteria you will need to be successful as a Ambulance Nurse; more detailed criteria are available in the Person Specification for the role:

• Fully qualified nurse with NMC registration
• Two years post-registration experience
• A valid UK full B category driving licence and full manual C1 category licence with no more than 3 penalty points. Applications will be accepted with a provisional C1 licence, but a full manual C1 category licence must be obtained one month prior to commencement of training
• Good communication skills
• Demonstrable working knowledge of dealing with patients
• Willingness to be able to make independent clinical decisions
• Flexible, with a willingness to work shifts
• Ability to work as part of a team.

To apply, click ‘Find jobs now’ or send your CV to jobs@scas.nhs.uk .  If you have any questions, please call 01869-365000 option 1 for the recruitment team.