When becoming a pre-hospital care provider, you accepted the responsibility to provide patient care as close to absolutely perfect as possible. The patient did not choose to become ill or injured, but you have chosen to take care of that patient. As a consequence, you are obliged to give 100 per cent effort during contact with every patient. This cannot be achieved with insufficient knowledge of the subject.

At the scene of an emergency there can be no time to think about the order in which the patient assessment is performed or what treatments should take priority over others. There is certainly no time to practice a skill before utilising it on a patient. Without the proper knowledge, training and equipment, the pre-hospital care provider may neglect to do things that could potentially increase the patient's chance of survival.

We understand that due to busy work schedules and family responsibilities it is not always possible to attend as many training courses or sessions as would be liked. Through the pages of The Pre-hospital Volume (PHV) [previously The Pre-hospital Volunteer] we hope to provide an additional educational resource to help you increase your skills and knowledge with the aim of improving patient care. We hope to bring you features which will broaden your understanding and introduce and refresh technical skills. The publication was re-named to reflect the change in readership - originally the majority of the readership were pre-hospital care volunteers, but now encompasses all levels of providers, from volunteer first aiders and community first responders through to EMTs and paramedics.

While paramedics are required to undertake Continued Professional Development (CPD) as part of their registration, we recommend that everyone involved with pre-hospital care should undertake CPD, reading PHV is one method of refreshing and updating your knowledge.

PHV is designed as a free educational resource to increase knowledge and understanding of pre-hospital care. It is designed to reinforce theoretical and practical training, not replace courses or training sessions. PHV academy will allow readers to assess their understanding of the periodical's features.

In the sections of the web site you will [shortly] find copies of individual articles published in the magazine. Registered members will also find the full editions of the magazine in the members area. We hope that you will find issues an inspiring read and of practical help. Members are notified by e-mail of the publication of a new issue.

Please tell your friends and colleagues about PHV and direct them to this web site so they can register and download their own copy — improving patient care should be of interest to all pre-hospital care providers.

At the end of the day we all chose to provide the best possible patient care.

PHV editorial team