Mr Joel Symonds

Mr Symonds has been a pre-hospital care clinician for over 15 years, working primarily within the NHS for the Scottish Ambulance Service. Since October 2019 he has been an Advanced Practitioner in Critical Care for the Scottish Trauma Network, with an honorary contract within NHS Lothians’ New Edinburgh Royal Infirmary’s Accident and Emergency Department. His current role involves attending pre-hospital incidents that fall beyond the remit of a typical ambulance response and require additional skills including emergency sedation, an expanded formulary and advanced decision making. He holds instructor certifications in multiple resuscitation disciplines and is a visiting lecturer for Edinburgh University’s MSc programme. He has extensive experience in working in remote and austere environments and has particular interest in the interface between clinical decision making and algorithmic paramedic care.

Mr Symonds has a broad clinical practice managing patients in pre-hospital critical care and paediatric emergency care; including independent prescribing, sedation, (including in acute behavioural disorder), emergency limb reductions, thoracostomy, surgical airway, advanced resuscitation techniques, and motorsports medicine. Within his practice Mr Symonds provides clinical decision making within the allocation of critical care resources including air assets; and pre-hospital care decisions, particularly where guidelines are vague or open to interpretation.