September 2026 Prolonged Field Care Course.

Course Report: Prolonged Field Care Course for remote, austere and wilderness locations: Autumn 2027.

Our uniquely Faculty of Pre Hospital Care of The Royal College of Surgeons endorsed PFC course is usually the final module in our sector leading 7 module R/EMO:TE Medic Programme.

That’s 16 days (plus pre study) of learning, onboarding knowledge, skill stations, scenarios, debriefs, further practice and consolidation time, covering trauma, surgical airways, needle decompression, TQ’s (and conversion), diverse medical subjects, stretcher types and carries, casualty packaging, evacuation planning, comms, wound care, live tissue stations, ultrasound, dentistry, incident response, culminating in our Prolonged Field Care course.

Delivered by a Faculty with first hand experience of Prolonged Field Care (both military and civilian contexts) and in remote island, desert and extreme altitude settings… who are experienced and qualified medics with extensive experience of operating in remote areas .. and are qualified, highly experienced and exceptional educators.

Practical, effective, real world training.

Which improves outcomes.

We’ve read the field reports. You can read the course testimonials - which include testimonials from serving military medics, ex Special Forces Medics from both UK and allied militaries, doctors, nurses, paramedics, first responders and more.

These courses have been tried, honed and tested, over many years. Since we developed the UK’s first civilian PFC course some 6/7 years ago.

After a long night managing multiple casualties, firstly in a tented, expeditionary setting on the mountain, with movement during the early hours to a mountain hut/mineral exploration camp store (with delegates in their tented camp alongside), with a (slight) upgrade in kit and electricity (but no functional lights), dealing with multiple casualties featuring a mix of ages and genders, a number of casualties were eventually extracted to a HLS, handover taken place and casualties evacuated by helicopter this morning.

Some aspects we won’t mention here as it’d detract from/  impact the experience of delegates on future courses.

The delegates were practicing the key foundation - doing the basics well, every time.

Within that, resource management, improvisation, working with what is available, introduction to casualty monitoring tech from Cosinuss, fluid warmers from Mequ, multiple mini ecg devices, innovative hypothermia management profucts, pocket sized tech that reduces fatigue impact on treating medics.

Helicopter safety session to support the final evac element.

Thereafter,  brief food stop, personal admin break in advance of the debrief.

A sign of how keen and professional the group was (most of whom had never met each other before) - they spent most of their personal admin time perfecting the timelines and representing trends, as a group, on a whiteboard, ready for the debrief.

Presenting the big picture.

The debrief builds on learning, introduces alternative view points, identifies corrective actions. Builds on the mental framework just experienced. Hones it.

Presents alternative ways of doing things that would increase efficiency and resilience next time.

Our courses are a safe space to make mistakes and turn them into a learning point that will stay with the delegates - a powerful way of learning.

This group performed really well.

Detailed debrief regarding each casualty. Regarding team performance.

Reminders that warning devices never go against bare skin - wrap that Nalgene bottle in a sock, then a dry bag.

Remember that shifts (and sleep) need to happen to maintain operational effectiveness.

Regular cleaning of the casualty is needed. Miss it and you receive surprises… unpleasant ones.

Breaking bad news, dealing with death and other related issues.

Overall review.

Lessons learned, take aways.

All honing the response for next time.

Next - blood typing, walking blood banks and info on further, specialist training solutions in this space.

Then - a virtual visit by one of our specialist Faculty doctors to discuss an extreme location PFC situation at altitude in a very very remote location - the Pakistan Karakoram and how the training delivered by us to their whole team, (medics and non medics) prior to deployment positively impacted the outcomes, the learning points the treating medics took away from the experience and wanted the delegates to know.

Our courses aren’t theory, they’re informed by real world use in PFC and PCC situations.

Then …the end of course exam (celebration of learning and testing effectiveness of the teaching), course close, dekit … then the reflection begins as delegates ponder, digest and predict what they’d do differently next time round.

All delegates passed the written exam.

All essential steps in providing a mental framework for if this were to happen for real - and to improve casualty outcomes.

This is the objective of the course.

Our clients won’t be carrying an ICU, they’re in the mountains, deep in jungles and other locations.

They’ll be carrying a backpack.

So we train them for their reality.

And the incremental echelons of care above that as they move to higher levels of shelter, equipment and acquire the benefit of power.

The knowledge they take away from The Prolonged Field Care course is valuable and powerful.

One recent delegate, a long experienced paramedic with ngo/humanitarian deployment experience said of the course;

‘By far, the most beneficial prehospital/austere/ remote course I've done in 30 years.’

Our training is professional level.

When we established our organisation, a decade ago, we set out to establish new standards and meet training gaps that existed in the real world and weren’t being met by conventional training organisations.

That legacy of change has seen waves  spread out and what we introduced to civilian remote medical training in the UK is now being accepted as mainstream necessity.

7 years ago, we set out to develop the first civilian ngo/humanitarian/fieldwork/exped specific Prolonged Field Care Course, for those operating in remote areas, out of a backpack, with limited resources.

Not only did we succeed in creating something unique, but it works and equips delegates with a suite of knowledge, skills and experiences to provide a foundation should they experience this for real.

More than that, we created the first and only Prolonged Field Care course endorsed (content and delivery) by the Faculty of Pre Hospital Care of the Royal College of Surgeon’s Edinburgh.

Since those early days, we seem to have inspired a multiplicity of other UK providers to follow our lead and develop PFC courses.

That is great. Our thinking has been accepted, validated and our mission advanced.

 "Education, Implementation and Support for Remote Area Safety and Duty of Care Practices Globally”

No doubt part of that is the introduction of Prolonged Field Care to  the UK leading remote area medical text, by one of our Faculty Doctors.

Since then, the reputation of the course has preceded it.

Its successes in the field have magnified its impact, with contextual learning and validation flowing from that.

We’ve become a viral force multiplier by our thinking adopted by other training organisations.

It’s the overall community benefit that matters.

Leading from the front in the UK. Others, elsewhere (US)  lead the field in the tactical side. Thats not our focus.

What is our focus ; Setting the standard for what good looks like in civilian, remote area medical training in the UK.

Lessons:

Couple of basic level take aways/universal truths;

✅ It’s the basics, done well, every time, that improves outcomes.

✅ Crew resource management- the team needs to stay operational. Humans need sleep. Rotas (and sticking to them are important).

✅ Train the whole team so that can do obs and understand trends. The medic has to sleep some time. Reduce the risk for that window by imbuing the team with knowledge.

✅ Nursing skills are important and nursing tasks need to be carried out.

✅ Standardised group kit that can be multi purposed. Lightweight, small, insulated sleeping mats and pillows. Fit for purpose, meaningful insulation.

✅ Nalgene bottles - for measuring fluid outputs. Don’t put heat sources directly next to skin

✅ Improvisation - effective use of hair dryers and group shelters to create a warned micro climate, even with a (cold) building.

✅ Hygiene products. 7 years ago when we started running these courses, we used festival style water free soaps, shampoos  and expandable flannels. We still teach that, as well as the practical limitations (very small cloth size). Now we use specific sanitisers, for stated reasons, much more effective cleaning adjuncts that improve hygiene -  and mission relevant waste disposal options (that we’ve tested in the field over years on our own expeds).

Higher level outputs … come on the course. It’s been a long weekend for delegates and Faculty alike.

On the Faculty front, this weekends Faculty included civilian, military, Paramedics, Doctor, Ships Medic, experience from Antarctica to Jungles, Deserts to depth of the ocean, Arctic Circle to Patagonia, extended expeds in Africa, South America and more.

Many examples were discussed, during the course, of the importance of proper prior planning, comms and developed, realistic comms and evacuation planning; Faculty discussing evac from remote islands, planning for evac from deep jungle settings and more.

Delegates recognising that some of the lessons (well known, high profile, exped sector incidents) from their own organisations, from previous years, need refreshing, re teaching and that being maintained.

Sharing the knowledge to support our communities of disaster responders, exped leaders, exped medics, NGO’s, disaster responders, SAR, scientific, research and field teams.