The Emergency Medical Retrieval Service (EMRS), provides patients with life threatening conditions in remote and rural areas of the West of Scotland, with rapid access to the skills of a consultant in emergency or intensive care medicine.  The consultants are ready to respond to requests for help, by helicopter or plane, within minutes.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde were commissioned by the Scottish Government Health Department to undertake an 18 month pilot of an EMRS, serving all remote and rural health care facilities in the West of Scotland.

The pilot service commenced June 1st 2008 and in the first year of the pilot EMRS has undertaken 222 patient retrievals and given advice on another 187 cases.

The retrievals and calls over the year have been from the following areas;

As well as patient retrieval, EMRS continues to work with rural practitioners via a series of "Working With the Retrieval Team" courses. The feedback from remote and rural areas has been very positive and emphasised the importance of developing an integrated system of rural emergency care for Scotland.

Published 5th June 2009