After seven years spent managing bars and nightclubs in Manchester and Liverpool, Aran Blunden had had enough. So he asked his staff to come up with a new career for him. The winning suggestion was to become a paramedic. "Four years later, I'm picking up drunk people rather than getting them drunk," says the 31-year-old ambulance technician.

Blunden quit his £28,000-a-year job and moved to Surrey to train, which was paid for by the county's ambulance service. Training included non-emergency work, a blue-light driving course, three months in the classroom and then a further year as a trainee technician. As a technician for the Surrey ambulance service, based in Walton-on-Thames, Blunden works a three days on, three days off, 12-hour shift assisting paramedics. "It can be tiring, but it is still fewer hours than running a bar," he says. "It's an amazing job in which you meet every type of person and have to think on your feet. It would be easy to say that the attraction is that you are saving people, but it is."

All paramedics are registered with the Health Professions Council after completing 600 hours of training. This is divided into three stages, with exams to pass at each stage. Blunden, who hopes to start full paramedic training by Christmas, says he enjoys the camaraderie with colleagues.

"You really do turn into a family with the amount of time you spend with your crewmates, especially doing nights," he says. "It's a very emotional job and you have to talk to each other. Counselling is available if you need it."

Blunden's route to becoming a paramedic is not the only option. There are now a number of two-year diploma or three-year degree courses. This reflects the changing role of the ambulance service, says Roland Furber of the British Paramedics Association.

"Demands and expectations mean university courses offer more substantial education with significant clinical placements," Furber says.

One option open to paramedics, three years after qualifying, is to train as an emergency care practitioner. The role of an ECP has been developed in a number of pilot schemes across Britain as part of emergency service reforms. Working solo, ECPs should quicken emergency response times, reduce the burden on A&E departments and cover out-of-hours primary care. "An ECP would attend non-life threatening cases requiring medical attention, have a greater clinical autonomy, such as giving antibiotics, and make referrals," says Furber.

Blunden is unsure where his career will take him, beyond his paramedic training. But as the past four years have proved, he wouldn't rule anything out.