Mr Phil Cowburn

Phil is a consultant in Emergency Medicine working at both Acute Trusts in Bristol. 

He has been active in prehospital care since 2004, being one of the founding members of Great Western Air Ambulance and remains clinically active with the team. 

He has held medical directorate roles within NHS Ambulance Trusts for over a decade and is Acute Care Medical Director for South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT), providing clinical leadership to support to major trauma, resuscitation, Hazardous Area Response Teams (HART) and Major Incident response. 

His ethos is to develop well-governed systems that provide seamless care for critically ill or injured patients from the point of first contact through to definitive care. To facilitate this he has a passion for advancing clinical practice in multidisciplinary teams believing this should be based on competency, rather than professional background.  

He was appointed as Medical Advisor to the National Ambulance Resilience Unit in 2021 to focus on clinical development and education. He is a trained ambulance service commander, a National Interagency Liaison Officer and holds qualifications in health emergency preparedness. 

His areas of interest include clinical and command decision making in high stress environments and Major Incident management. 

In addition to these roles he provides clinical governance to police specialist units and Fire Rescue Services, and is civilian ambulance advisor to UK military prehospital care. 

He is an examiner for the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care (RCSEd) and maintains a strong educational commitment on a number of courses.