The founder of the first paramedic unit in Europe, Prof. Douglas Chamberlain, spoke to an 85-strong audience of doctors, paramedics, nurses, students and other emergency services personnel at the Essex & Herts Air Ambulance Trust’s monthly Clinical Governance Day held at North Weald Airfield on Tuesday 15 March.

Prof. Chamberlain, who has dedicated his career to pioneering the resuscitation techniques that are now common place amongst the emergency services and save lives every day, was invited to speak at the event hosted at North Weald Airfield – home of the Herts Air Ambulance.

After giving his presentation about optimising Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation he remarked: “It was a real privilege to have come and met so many wonderful dedicated people, thank you so very much, an inspiring day for us”.

EHAAT opens its doors to the wider healthcare and emergency services community on the third Tuesday of each month. All those with an interest in pre-hospital critical care are invited to share its governance meetings. Every event is themed around an element of emergency care and, as well as case presentations, audits and journal reviews, include presentations from expert speakers from a variety of clinical backgrounds.

Laurie Phillipson, EHAAT Clinical Manager said: “Every paramedic across the country has heard of Prof. Chamberlain; in many ways he is the father of the paramedic profession and responsible for saving thousands of lives; to have him speak at one of our governance days was a real honour”.

Other speakers on the day included David and Kaz Fletcher, who spoke of the influence that data downloaded from defibrillators can have on improving resuscitation, and Dr Ben Singer who presented forward-thinking presentation on Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation and its role in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

Dr Alex Rosenberg , Consultant in Critical Care at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, and some of his colleagues attended the Governance Day. He said: “We all thought it was a really great day and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the real take home message for me was the chaos that your team deal with day to day and how this impacts upon resuscitation.”