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.

Mr Symonds's research interests include emergency medicine, critical care, pre-hospital care, resuscitation, paediatrics, leadership, emergency communication, followership, human factors, and flash teams.

Mr Symonds is an experienced instructor, examiner and educational author. He instructs at the UK Resus Council: Advanced Life Support, European Paediatric Advanced Life Support; The ATACC Group: Anaesthetics, Trauma, and Critical Care; and the Edinburgh University: MSc Critical Care. Mr Symonds is a regular presenter at national and international conferences.

Mr Symonds's has a publication credit in Storytelling in Medicine – How Narrative Can Improve Practice (CRC Press, 2024). He is a member of the Research and Development Advisory Committee for the College of Paramedics (2018-2024); during this he was the Co-author of "Paramedic Research; Principles, Design and Methods" textbook (publication pending). Mr Symonds was a Team Member of the Emergency Medicine Research Group Edinburgh (during 2015-2018); during this time he was a Deployed Team Member at the Project Sanchibondu, a clinical development project in rural Zambia. He was also a Research fellow conducting a qualitative study in the experience of bystander CPR.

2

Mr Symonds is regularly the lead pre-hospital provider at significant incidents in South East Scotland providing supervision, leadership, and decision making for multi-disciplinary teams across the region. He is a Clinical Governance Consultant for Prometheus Medical International (from 2016-present); within this role Mr Symonds analyses, assesses, and provides guidance to major industries (Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce, Virgin, BT), develops new working practices, provides advice on medico-legal risk and surety, and responds to significant incidents including chairing critical incident debriefs for staff at all levels. Additionally, during Mr Symonds' Advance Practitioner Despatch Role in Critical Care (from 2021-present) he analyses 999 calls to determine the requirement for air assets or enhanced care resources; provides remote consultation in significant incidents; deploys and manages national resources at an operational level; and acts as the interim national MIO in case of major incident. From 2022-present Mr Symonds has been the Assistant Chief Medical Officer at the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix where he leads an international multidisciplinary team, liaises with multiple agencies, and provides operational oversight of live incidents.