Military medics and paramedics: what the UK figures show

I have worked as both a military medic and a paramedic, and I went looking for the numbers behind the assumptions.

My own experience is that I have seen far more patients as a paramedic in the last year than in all my years as a military medic, and I made a point of working busy. That is one person's view, so I wanted to see what the figures say.

What the UK figures show

• Between January 2015 and March 2021, 3 of 1,434 UK operational casualties were battle injuries. The rest were non-battle injuries and illness (UK MOD operational casualty statistics).

• Major trauma is under 1% of ambulance incidents in England. In 2019, just over half of major trauma patients were low-energy falls, with a median age of 80 (TARN data, with my own estimate against NHS England incident numbers).

• A study of UK paramedics found infrequent exposure to serious illness and trauma, and suggested rare serious incidents may lead to skill decay (Journal of Paramedic Practice, 2019).

Why it matters

Major trauma is rare for both groups. Military medics rehearse it deliberately. Paramedics build the everyday clinical base around it.

How do we both keep those skills sharp, and what can each learn from the other?

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