Rescue teams are highly trained

Scotland's mountain rescue teams should be offered more support to enhance their medical skills, according a trauma expert.

Dr Stephen Hearns, who is a member of the Arrochar mountain rescue team, has called for teams to be given the opportunity to take on extra training in hospitals.

The consultant in emergency medicine at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley said the volunteers have performed brilliantly in handling the hundreds of incidents on Scotland's mountains and other remote areas every year.

Currently training is classroom-based and scenario-based and is excellent but for a few members in each team it may be beneficial to augment that with clinical training Dr Stephen Hearns

However, he said further support should be offered to mountain rescue teams.

He said: "What I'm advocating is that a system be introduced which facilitates clinical training and exposure to cases in a clinical environment.

"Currently training is classroom-based and scenario-based and is excellent but for a few members in each team it may be beneficial to augment that with clinical training."

Dr Hearns conducted a study for the Emergency Medicine Journal which looked at a total of 622 mountain rescues carried out by teams in Scotland over a two-year period.

He said that equated to almost one incident a day.

In 337 cases people required medical treatment, the majority of which was for minor injuries and illnesses.

There were four deaths - three resulting from trauma and one from hypothermia - but all of the patients would have died anyway.

Dr Hearns stressed that skills and equipment of teams were "quite adequate" but he said: "I'm just advocating more support for mountain rescue team members who are working in very inhospitable and arduous environments."

Voluntary service

Dr Dave Syme, a GP in Killin, Perthshire, is the medical officer with the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland.

He welcomed the proposals but said it may be difficult to extend any programme across the country.

"As a service we always like to improve, there is always a need for continuing training in trauma management.

"My only slight reservation is that this is already a voluntary service where people give a lot of their own time and there are limits on what you can ask people to do.

"If you live and work in Torridon, for example, you would have to be looking to travel to somewhere like Inverness, which would mean another commitment on your time."