Keele’s first cohort of student paramedics have begun their first placements with West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust (WMAS) as part of their degree.

The students, studying on Keele’s new Paramedic Science with Integrated Master’s (MSci) course, are learning essential lifesaving skills first-hand from expert clinicians, and have joined paramedic ambulance crews as they work to provide emergency care to communities across the region.

High-quality work placements across the West Midlands such as these make up around 50% of the course. They have been co-designed in partnership with WMAS, and are designed to provide students with as broad a range of experiences as possible in an NHS ambulance service, general practice settings, emergency departments and hospital settings to name but a few.

The course, new for the 2021/22 academic year, gives students the training, experience, and expertise needed to become qualified paramedics, working on the frontline of the NHS and in local communities to provide emergency, urgent and primary care services.

Kevin Armstrong, Director of Paramedicine at Keele said: “The paramedic education team at Keele University are delighted to see their first cohort of students commencing placements with WMAS. It makes the team very proud to see the students embrace the excellent learning opportunities available to them as they learn to apply theory into practice and developing them into outstanding paramedics of the future.”

Mark Tomlinson, a Clinical Team Mentor at WMAS, said: “It has been a really exciting time to start welcoming students from Keele and also to begin our new working partnership with the University. The students we have welcomed so far have been really keen to learn from the outset and I look forward to seeing how they progress over the coming weeks. We hope that by spending time with us, we can play a part in ensuring they gain the vital skills needed to go on and enjoy long and successful careers as paramedics.”

Professor Christian Mallen, Head of Keele’s School of Medicine, added: “'I'm incredibly proud of our paramedic science programme and seeing our first students go on placement is so very exciting. They are going to be amazing practitioners and I look forward to seeing them continue to develop their skills in the future.”