clinical phase of training. Attending hospitals they were trained in all the practical skills. The final examination was designed to put as much pressure on the candidate as possible. The hospital consultant would sign to say that he was happy for a passing candidate to treat their family. In the 1970s some ambulance service training departments started offering advanced skill training under the direction of Peter Baskett (Consultant Anaesthetist at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol) and Douglas Chamberlain (Consultant Cardiologist in Brighton). This was the inception of the paramedic service in the UK, and subsequently was developed across Europe. In 1986 the NHSTA introduced the certificate in Extended Ambulance Aid. Existing AEMT Paramedics were forced to sit a conversion examination. The curriculum for the new qualification was substantially smaller cutting out a lot of anatomy and physiology as well as pharmacology and obstetrics. In November 1986 the examinations took place with the first certificates issued alphabetically. The candidate with highest score received certificate 177 and was the only Paramedic at Huntingdon. Training was introduced the following year but due to costs the time was kept to a minimum. The AEMT folded in the 1990s as the training offered was no longer recognised by the ambulance services. Equipment owned by the branches was given to hospitals. The NHS Training Authority, NHSTA, (which became the NHS Training Directorate and then the NHS Training Division, which in turn became the Institute of Health and Care Development. The institute was acquired by the Edexcel examination board in 1998, and Edexcel was acquired by Pearson in 2004. Pearson continued to operate the IHCD 'brand' until 2016. This 'in-house' paramedic training was a modular programme, usually between 10 and 12 weeks, followed by time spent in a hospital emergency department, coronary care centre and operating theatre, assisting the anaesthetist and performing airway management techniques such as endotracheal intubation. Completion of the course allowed the paramedic to register with the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (CPSM), which was superseded by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), a regulatory body. It is worth noting that this route also took around 3 years if undertaken as quickly as possible. After the non emergency training, initially an 8-week clinical technician course was undertaken, with 750 mentored hours. Staff usually had to be a qualified technician for 2 years before applying for paramedic training noted above, a further 750 hours mentored