Decentralisation of ambulance education in NZ – largely political – ambulance services could get funding for educating their own ambulance officers, so elected to develop a new qualification – National Certificate – and essentially each ambulance service did their own thing, but recently the qualification was reviewed and a new National Diploma was developed, which is aiming to be a national standard. Remember that in NZ, St John is the provider of 80+% of NZ’s ambulance services, but other smaller services are beginning to use the Nat Dip as their qualification also.

In 2002 the first 3 year degree was launched by AUT University, essentially raising education to a degree level – previous paramedic qualifications were equivalent with a 2 year diploma programme, or you could study in an Australian university for advanced life support quals. The AUT Uni degree gave ALS skillset at year 3, so working ILS medics could enrol and complete the degree and gain Authority to Practice (ATP) at ALS level. The degree is open to direct entry students, graduates of the programme who are employed with an ambulance service are given ATP at BLS level, but are on a ‘graduate’ programme and based on their performance can be fast-tracked to ILS level then ALS level.

In regards to Ben’s comment that the 3 year degree was started up independently, the fragmentation that was occurring between 1999 and 2002 meant that NAOTS (National Ambulance Officers Training School) was based at AUT, was rudderless, I wasn’t part of the initial development of the degree but taught on there from 2003 until this August.

Disagree with Ben’s comment about BHSc students learning 12 leads straight off – not true – 3 leads, rhythm interpretation and manual defib taught before moving onto 12 leads the following semester (sem 2 year 2), in preparation for ALS in sem 1 year 3. Too hard to learn 12 leads straight off…

Happy to answer any further queries.
Cheers Sarah Werner
Clinical Education Tutor, St John, New Zealand