AMBULANCE staff will leave the region today to return to Africa and share their life-saving skills.

Three members of staff from the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service will be among a team visiting Malawi to teach Basic Trauma Life Support (BTLS) to doctors, nurses, police, soldiers and firefighters.

They first visited Malawi in 2001 to help establish a pre-hospital trauma team.

Eventually, with the help of the Malawi government, they hope to set up an ambulance service there.

The trip involves Ian Lawrence, an emergency medical technician in Harrogate, his wife, Carol, a nurse at York District Hospital, paramedic Dave Sansum and ambulance training Officer Syd Pinkney, from Northallerton, and Kyee Ham, an accident and emergency consultant at James Cook Hospital, Middlesbrough.

Mr Lawrence, of York, said: "We will be teaching three BTLS courses, including an advanced course, and will hopefully be running an instructor's course for those who passed at a certain standard last time so they can teach their own people.

"The aim is to make them self-sufficient."

The initiative, set up six years ago by the South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust, is funded by the National Lottery and the Tropical Health Education Trust.

Based at a hospital in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, the team will instruct their students on a variety of trauma, including head, chest and spinal injuries.

Mr Sansum, of Northallerton, said: "When we first went, they were so eager to learn. It will be interesting to see how the project has developed in our absence."

Mr Pinkney, from Redmarshall, Stockton, said: "I am really excited about returning to Malawi because it's great to be able to continue what we started."