Agenda item
Community First Responders
Minutes:
Tom Render from Yorkshire Ambulance Service spoke to the residents about Community First Responders.
He is responsible for all the Community First Responders for the whole of York and surrounding areas and he would like to set up a Community First Responders team in Strensall ward.
Volunteers would be trained in how to use a defibrillator, oxygen therapy and basic life support skills and training would be ongoing. The team members would have total back up and are never left alone in a situation.
Community First Responders are part of the 999 emergency services. When 999 is dialled the call taker asks for your postcode which is fed into the computer system. The dispatcher will then search for the nearest resource in the area. This could be an ambulance, rapid response vehicle or a community first responder depending on who is nearest to the incident. This is important in the case of cardiac arrest when the first minutes are crucial and can mean the difference between life and death. The faster a person has access to a defibrillator the better the chance of survival. Ordinary CPR has a survival success rate of between 6/8% whereas a defibrillator has a survival success rate of 50/60%. Community First Responders do save lives. They are also trained to deal with strokes, diabetic emergencies, asthma, anaphylaxic shock and to administer oxygen therapy.
Community First Responders can now access the 24/7 Yorkshire Ambulance Service online education programme.
He asked for six volunteers to start a team in Strensall and the team would be asked to dedicate a minimum of 120 hours per month which amounts to about 4 hours a week per individual. If anyone is interested my contact details are on some leaflets at the back of the room. Responders must be over 18 and have had a driving licence for 12 months and have no more than three points on their licence.
People are encouraged to go out in pairs at first to give each other confidence. Responders can also spend a day with paramedics and a day in the control centre.
I meet with teams every other month, although some teams meet
monthly to share information and experiences. Responders need to be reassessed every
six months.
It was agreed that this issue could be put in the Village magazine to spread the word.
Contact details:
Tom Render: Telephone 07554416711 Email: tom.render@yas.nhs.uk
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Q |
Would responders have a defibrillator on them?
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Yes. Responders are never put in danger, never set to trauma incidents i.e. traffic accidents, and they always have back up. Responders can also refuse a job.
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How are they contacted?
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Schemes have a mobile phone and the control centre will ring the responder and they could then decide whether they want to say no.
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Cllr Doughty asked whether the hours covered by a responder could be flexible.
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Very flexible. The teams work it out between them, some responders take weekends, some Monday to Friday, some take a week at a time. The more hours that can be covered the better.
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Cllr Wiseman said the village halls in Earswick and Stockton on Forrest currently have defibrillators but following a meeting in both villages interest was expressed in joining such a team. It would be interesting to see if there would be people in Earswick who would like to join the Strensall team.
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The computer works from the centre of Strensall with a three mile radius so as Earswick is only 1.5 miles this would seem to be possible.
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How long has this scheme been running?
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The scheme started in Yorkshire and has been running for over 15 years |