Pre-hospital emergency medicine was initially recognised as a subspecialty of Emergency Medicine and Anaesthesia by the GMC on 20 July 2011; subspecialty status was later granted for Intensive Care Medicine (ICM) and Acute Internal Medicine (AIM) on 1 October 2013. PHEM now has an approved curriculum and training structure with a national selection process administered by the Intercollegiate Board for Training in Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine (IBTPHEM).

Doctors, regardless of their chosen base specialty, must have completed ST4 training and have successfully passed their primary membership examinations to be eligible for PHEM training to commence at the earliest in ST5. They must also have accrued a minimum of 6 months’ experience, at the level of CT1 or above, in each of emergency medicine, anaesthetics and ICM; a lack of any of these may be compensated for by a 6 month placement taken as part of an Out-of-Programme Experience (OOPE).