Live Life Team
The ambulance service trains and employs hundreds of paramedics across the UK, all of who save lives and provide vital medical care for those in need. There is a lot of stress involved as you will see some horrible things and have to deal with very badly injured people and those that have died. However, the rewards will be plentiful.
Training tends to be through the local ambulance service, and they work in conjunction with a local teaching hospital to provide the training required. To apply you must meet the selection criteria and apply as a trainee. There is often more than one way into the ambulance service, depending on your qualifications.
Before you can apply you need to be able to drive and have a clean UK driving licence. Although, paramedics tend to work in pairs, either with another paramedic or with the lower level technician, all personnel are taught to drive the ambulance, and may need to do so at any time. So you need your basic car licence before you can do their driver training course, and it’s a compulsory part of gaining the paramedic qualification.
With a role like this you can expect to work some seriously anti social hours: the shifts tend to be 12 hours long, and you will often have to work over Christmas and the New Year. However, you do get prolonged periods of time off in between shifts to compensate.
