Emergency homebirth skills for paramedics and community midwives

Interprofessional learning (IPL) has global recognition for improving education and health care quality and is defined as ‘occurring when two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes’ (Barr and Low 2013: 4). It is widely believed that IPL can contribute to breaking down barriers and resolving misconceptions between professions (Seabrook 1998; Atkins 1998). It is surprising, therefore, that whilst IPL appears such a positive educational concept, its practical application to pre- and post-registration courses remains limited, with sparse examples of IPL in clinical practice (McLelland et al 2013; Williams and Webb 2015). This was certainly true when I developed an educational strategy for our home birth service, where I discovered not only an educational need, but no local provision for ambulance crew to maintain emergency home birth skills.