CPD Committee
The CPD Committee was established shortly after the 2012 Annual General Meeting and is currently Chaired by Ian Philbrick. One of ECSSA's main objectives in the short term is to make CPD events more accessible to its members, both locally (for example events organised by Chapters, once these are established) and online. Not only should CPD events be accessible to members, but they should also be affordable and suitable for a wide range of emergency care personnel.
The launch of online CPD by the Society in 2013 at a very reasonable cost will address part of ECSSA's overall objective for CPD. The CPD Committee will be responsible for co-ordinating accreditation and other administrative aspects of all of the Society's CPD activities, and will also (during the course of 2013) formulate a strategic vision for ECSSA as key part of the CPD system.
Guidelines Committee
The Guidelines Committee, Chaired by Martin Botha, was also established at the 2012 Annual General Meeting. This was mainly in response to a discussion at the meeting around the role of guidelines (or "protocols" as they are currently known) in pre-hospital emergency care and how this relates to ECSSA's objectives. It was felt that a Committee should be formed to focus ECSSA's efforts in this regard, encompassing not only the drafting and production of future guidelines, but also formulating a strategy with regard to ECSSA's views on the role to be played by guidelines and the methods used to base them on evidence and update them regularly.
It is unlikely that ECSSA will play a direct role in producing guidelines in the short term, however we believe that it is a very important part of the Society's future activities. However a solid framework and understanding of what the profession requires from guidelines, how they should be produced and how they should be incorporated into practice is needed first. It is the Guidelines Committee's immediate priority to address these issues.
