Crowd/Event Doctors and Event Practitioners qualifications

All grounds and certifying authorities (supported by SAGs) are reminded of the need to ensure their Crowd/Event Doctors and Event Practitioners are appropriately qualified and trained for the role.

The sixth edition of the Green Guide (Paragraph 18.7) sets out in detail what is recommended, but in brief:

The Event Doctor must:

1. be a Registered Medical Practitioner, with a current licence to practice, and have proof that his or her pre-hospital work is reviewed annually via a mandatory appraisal process and five-yearly revalidation process;
2. hold the appropriate professional indemnity;
3. have participated in one of the approved pre-hospital training courses and one of the approved major incident courses;
4. have participated in Major Incident Training and be trained to undertake major incident triage of patients in line with ambulance service clinical guidelines;
5. have proof of clearance from the relevant disclosure and barring service (DBS), Primary Care Trust or equivalent organisation;
6. have taken part in the testing of the management’s contingency plans.

For events between 2,000 and 10,000 spectators it may be acceptable (if justified) to deploy an Event Practitioner instead of an Event Doctor. In such cases they will not need to comply with a) above. However, they must comply with the criteria mentioned in the final paragraphs of Paragraph 18.7 in terms of professional healthcare certification, training, qualifications, and registration with a relevant licensing body.

An Event Practitioner may be drawn from the pool of qualified, trained and certified individuals who are registered with their licensing body (for example as an HCPC paramedic or NMC registered nurse) and hold positions such as Specialist Paramedic, Clinical Nursing Specialist, Emergency Care Practitioner, Specialist Practitioner Urgent Care or Emergency Nurse Practitioner.

Applicable training courses

In respect of c) above the current approved courses are:

Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Course (PHEC) run by either: 

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; or

The British Association for Immediate Care (BASICS) (which run more frequently)

In respect of c) and d) above the current approved course is:

Major Incident Medical Management and Support (MIMMS) endorsed by Advanced Life Support Group (ALSG)  

Personnel undertaking the above training courses should seek guidance from the training provider and/or their clinical supervisor in relation to the timings of refresher courses and CPD.