What are the highest priorities for research in emergency prehospital care?

Prioritisation of research topics is a key part of the process of commissioning of research, although methods may differ. 2 3 The desirability of including a wide range of stakeholders in a structured approach has been stressed, in order to achieve a credible result that may be more likely to produce research that informs policy and practice. 4 - 6 This emergency prehospital care research prioritisation exercise included three elements ( fig 1 ): Identification of published reviews, policy documents and ongoing research within the field of emergency prehospital care. A total of 158 individuals and 10 organisations were invited to participate including members of emergency, prehospital and primary care clinical and research networks; an ambulance service trust chief executive, an operations director, medical/clinical directors and R&D leads; international experts; and patient representative groups.