Ministry Ambulance Corps

An ambulance is a vehicle for transporting sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury. The term ambulance is used to describe a vehicle used to bring medical care to patients outside of the hospital or to transport the patient to hospital for follow-up care and further testing. The term ambulance comes from the Latin word ambulare, meaning to walk or move about which is a reference to early medical care where patients were moved by lifting or wheeling. The word originally meant a moving hospital which follows an army in its movements. While muggles think of an ambulance as an automobile, to wizards, an ambulance is more of a concept and thus truer to the original use of the ambulance on Napoleonic battlefields (the ambulance volantes or the "flying ambulance") in the late 1700s and 1800s.

Ambulance runners (or "ambulators"), as they're often referred to, use a combination of Apparation, flying and occasional litter transport. The latter is rare, being difficult to manage in times of conflict. Runners are able to perform very basic lifesaving spells and often know a small amount of muggle medicine. However, they are not anywhere near the level of mediwizard or healer - their role is to stabilize and defend their charges. For that reason, many runners perform better in actual combat than as assistants at the medical table, although they may occasionally be called on to serve the latter function.