Sorry but I'm sick and tired of this attitude. Over the last year I did about 300 hours clinical work, all over the year not just the last 6 weeks, I am available to prvoide a paramedic assistance to any of my crews almost every hour that I am at work, why the hell shouldn't my contribution be recognised. The number of paramedics a service has is the number of staff that are qulaified paramedics regardless of what other work they have to do. We don't discount staff who are sick so I see no reason to discount staff just because they don't do 37.5 hours a week on the road. If you read Reynolds piece you'll see that the shortage of paramedics is down to government funding not LAS managment policy, we all are responsible for the government and so I'll hapily share the blame with you on that one. In the mean time I'd rather have a good EMT attend me if I got ill than a bad paramedic.