Rural Australia is well served by ambulance and retrieval services, bringing high level critical care services to patients in need.

Unfortunately the tyranny of distance means that specialist retrieval teams may take some time - often hours. - to arrive. Similarly ambulance resources may be limited or have treatment ceilings. This creates a ‘trauma gap’ for patients with time critical needs.

Small geographical countries such as the UK and NZ have well-developed schemes to include rural doctors in prehospital responses. Yet much of Australia does not…yet!

The charity Sandpiper Australia was established by rural doctors to help equip our profession with a standardised set of emergency equipment, The ACRRM PHEC course helps train rural doctors in translating their existing skillset to the austere prehospital environment.

Standardised kit and training allows the rural generalist to become a ‘known value resource’ to be incorporated into State emergency systems and disaster response.

This presentation will present an update on the move to develop rural responder networks, with rural doctors front and centre in supporting communities and develop resilience during emergencies such as farm accidents, vehicle crashes .. and disasters such as bushfire, flood or cyclone etc