Pre-hospital and retrieval medicine in Scotland: a retrospective cohort study of the workload and outcomes of the emergency medical retrieval service in the first decade of national coverage

BACKGROUND: The Emergency Medical Retrieval Service (EMRS) has provided national pre-hospital critical care and aeromedical retrieval in Scotland since 2010. This study investigates trends in the service and patients attended over the last decade; and factors associated with clinical deterioration and pre-hospital death. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was conducted of all service taskings over ten years (2011–2020 inclusive). The EMRS electronic database provided data on location, sociodemographic factors, diagnoses, physiological measurements, clinical management, and pre-hospital deaths. Binary logistic regression models were used to determine change in physiology in pre-hospital care, and factors associated with pre-hospital death. Geospatial modelling, using road and air travel time models, was used to explore transfer times. RESULTS: EMRS received 8,069 taskings over the study period, of which 2,748 retrieval and 3,633 pre-hospital critical care missions resulted in patient contact. EMRS was more commonly dispatched to socioeconomically deprived areas for pre-hospital critical care incidents (Spearman’s rank correlation, r(8)=-0.75, p = 0.01). In multivariate analysis, systolic blood pressure < 90mmHg, respiratory rate < 6/min or > 30/min, and Glasgow Coma Score ≤ 14 were associated with pre-hospital mortality independent of demographic factors. Geospatial modelling suggested that aeromedical retrieval reduced the mean time to a critical care unit by 1 h 46 min compared with road/ferry transportation. CONCLUSION: EMRS continues to develop, delivering Pre-Hospital and Retrieval Medicine across Scotland and may have a role in addressing health inequalities, including socioeconomic deprivation and geographic isolation. Age, specific distances from care, and abnormal physiology are associated with death in pre-hospital critical care. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13049-023-01109-6.