Left to right – Ewan, Carole, Jeremy, Barbara, Darren, Sue, John, Jackie.
Community First Responders
Our responders give up numerous hours a week logged on, uniformed and equipped ready for attending any 999-call in support of patients and the ambulance service.
Some of us are also signed in to GoodSam making themselves available 24/7 to attend life threatening callouts within a certain radius, which means dropping everything to get to the scene as soon as possible to deliver life saving treatment often before anyone else arrives….. day or night.
Some of us are “retired” (I use the term retired very lightly!), whilst some are working fulltime.
Logged on as a Responder we very often do not know what we are going to! Sometimes we get very brief information, so we have to be ready for literally anything within our scope of practice. But always, our responders are ready to do what they must to preserve life, prevent suffering and promoting recovery.
We are all very happy to do what we do. There are sad outcomes and happy outcomes, we meet people from all walks of life, and no 2 jobs are the same…ever. It is a constant learning curve and we work alongside some highly skilled professionals to get the job done, and is amazing to be a part of such a fantastic team.
We operate a strict deployment protocol and operating procedures set by East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust. All Community First Responders are CRB checked every three years.
We are only able to operate thanks to the kind generosity of our sponsors. It costs in the region of £2500 to equip each responder and we are always looking for help to raise this money to enable us to recruit more responders into the local area. Please help us by donating to our funds. We would be very grateful!
We are dispatched to Category A 999 calls include the following condition/symptoms:
- Cardiac arrest
- Unconscious and collapsed patients
- Chest pains (e.g. heart attacks and acute angina)
- Breathing difficulties (e.g. asthma, acute on-set bronchitis/emphysema)
- Diabetic emergencies (e.g. hypoglycemia)
- Fitting or convulsions (e.g. epilepsy)
- Stroke (CVA)
- Anaphylaxis (allergic reaction)
- Choking patientsIn line with the ambulance service’s lone working policy, for our personal protection, we are not sent to any of the following types of calls:
- Road traffic collisions (RTCs)
- Incidents at bars, pubs and clubs
- Young children (some responders are trained in pediatrics and respond to these cases)
- Incidents of domestic violence
We meet up regularly to check our kit is complete and in date, and also have regular refresher training on CPR, Drugs, AED and Paediatrics, also discuss anything else that has happened in the month. We also have a private WhatsApp group chat so we can see who’s logged on and off and anything else important we need to know.