Aim Care provided by the ambulance service is often associated with emergency medicine, traumatology and disaster medicine this leaving a rather scant volume of research on children and their parents’ perspective on the care received. Aim: To explore parents’ experience of caring encounter in the ambulance service.

Method A qualitative design with interviews and an inductive qualitative content analysis was used.

Results 14 parents described 16 encounters’ with ambulance personnel. Overall they expressed satisfaction with the care their children received. The parents described the significance when the personnel gave the family enough time, created a safe environment and involved the parents in the care. The parents felt unsafe when there were lack of communication and sensitivity, the equipment was not adaptable for children, and the parents was not invited to participate in the care.

Conclusion In order to improve the care in the ambulance it is imperative that we understand what parents want and value. Overall, parents’ experiences was positive, but there is a need to strengthen the family-centred care in the ambulance service. Not inviting the parents to participate in the care, using not adaptable equipment caused a sense of uncertainty, lack of trust and increased level of stress among the parents. This may be caused by a lack of training or knowledge on caring of children among the personnel, managers need to acknowledge this in the ambulance personnel’s continues medical education. Further intervention studies aiming to develop the family-centred care in the ambulance service is needed.

Conflict of interest None

Funding Founding was provided by Karolinska Institutet FoBi foundations 2017.