05 Jun 2024

EMBARGO: Ambulance service celebrates thousands of hours of volunteering at annual awards

Over 380 North East residents volunteer their spare time to support North East Ambulance (NEAS) Service patients and employees were recognised tonight (Wednesday 5 June) at a ceremony at the Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle, organised by NEAS.

Over the last 12 months, NEAS volunteers have dedicated thousands of hours of their time to support the service. This included community first responders who have volunteered over 41,000 hours and over 84,000 patients have been transported to non-urgent appointments by our ambulance car service drivers.

The celebrations are part of a week-long campaign to celebrate the nationally recognised Volunteers Week (3-9 June), including community first responders, ambulance care service drivers, and porters.

Among those who attended were 47 volunteers from across the service who have celebrated service of two years or more, including two ambulance car drivers, James Kidd and William Stainsby who have reached over 20 years and Paul Temperley who has reached 25 years of volunteering and helping those in need.

The volunteer cohort are made up of four unique roles which benefit the service in several ways:

112 community first responders who are based across the region and are trained to deal with emergencies prior to the arrival of an ambulance; over the last year they have attended over 1,850 incidents and have collectively volunteered over 41,000 hours for the service in 2023/24 equates to 1,715 days and respond to serious emergencies such as cardiac arrests.
123 ambulance car service drivers who in the past year alone have transported over 84,000 patients and have travelled over 3.1million miles using their own vehicles to drive patients to and from appointments at hospital, which helps keep ambulances free for emergencies and patients who are too poorly to travel by car.
18 hospital porters who work across the regions hospitals and are the first point of contact for non-life-threatening patients once they arrive at hospital; allowing ambulance crews to get back on the road and respond to more emergencies.
128 community ambassadors who work alongside our engagement team and within their local communities to raise awareness of our services and life-saving skills like CPR; this work includes hosting CPR and defibrillator sessions to increase the general public’s knowledge of bystander CPR.
The Council is made up of 21 public governors (six in North of Tyne, five in South of Tyne, five in Durham and five in Teesside), five staff governors, plus nine appointed governors. Our governors play a vital role in reviewing the performance of our Board and the contribution our service makes to the wider health and care system, providing an essential link to the communities we serve.

NEAS chief operating officer, Stephen Segasby said: “Working as hard as ever, over the last year our volunteers have provided incredible support for the service and dedicated care for a number of our patients across the region, and it is an honour to be able to recognise and thank them for this.

“It is exceptional that two of our volunteers celebrated 20 years’ service with us and one volunteer reaching a 25-year milestone. The commitment they give to NEAS, and the patients and communicates we serve is exceptional and they do it selflessly and in their own time. I cannot thank them and our volunteer's team enough for the work they have done, and that they continue to do."

Find out how you can volunteer with NEAS here:  https://www.neas.nhs.uk/first-aid-community/volunteers

For details of our outstanding achievement volunteers, please see the notes to editors.

Notes to editors

Colin (Greg) Stone - Grangetown

Greg joined NEAS in February 2023 as a community first responder, he has shown his commitment to both the organisation and his community, providing over 2,160 hours of availability, and being activated to nearly 290 life-threatening incidents, including cardiac arrest. His willingness to help those in need has been recognised by not only patients but also by members of staff with four letters of appreciation received, commending him for his skills, patience, and empathy. Greg wishes to develop these skills further and has now joined NEAS as a full-time member of staff and he is currently undertaking his Emergency Care Assistant course. Greg has insisted that he wants to continue to respond as a volunteer in his neighbourhood when not on operational duties.

Stephen Dunn - Shildon

Stephen became a CFR in 2011 after chatting with the same paramedic at the scene of two serious road traffic collisions two weeks apart. Stephen is registered as a CFR in Newton Aycliffe; however, he responds across the Northeast as he travels around, the region for work. Stephen is an AED awareness instructor who helps NEAS and his local community with the delivery of first aid training and familiarisation to local community groups. Also assisting the team and community groups with community public access defibrillators (cPAD), ensuring that they are available to the public in their time of need.

In May 2024 Stephen responded to a Category 1 call for a Cardiac Arrest in the shop of Heworth Metro Station. Getting the call while in his office in Felling, Stephen was able to be onsite with the patient within 2 minutes. Upon arrival, bystander CPR was already underway, and Stephen was able to attach a defibrillator, secure the patient's airway, take over CPR, and give oxygen. This was all carried out before the next ambulance response arrived, where Stephen carried on as part of the team, taking turns giving good quality CPR and respiratory support with a bag-valve-mask. The patient was successfully given treatment for approximately 45 minutes.

Janice Robinson - North

Janice started volunteering back in 2013. From the get-go Janice embraced the role and wanted to get involved to ensure that the patients were front, and centre and that Volunteers were represented by being our longest serving member of the Volunteer committee. Nothing is too much trouble for Janice. Her aim to treat people as she would want to be treated.

If we can go back to when covid hit us in 2020 it was a reactive time, and we were dealing with situations as they developed. One of the issues we had as an organisation was to ensure that a confidential process was delivered in the way of payroll, the royal mail wasn’t at that time able to reliably deliver our payment runs on time and so Janice was asked if this was something she would be able to deliver on a monthly basis. So, until recently Janice has continued to do this task, amazingly never complaining about the weather conditions, and putting aside her own personal issues, this was a task that had to be completed. Our processes have now changed and will be very seldomly needed. Throughout the years Janice has built up an rapport with Yorkshire Ambulance service and I’m sure has made friends for life from this.

Tsz Kin (Patrick) Sun - Newcastle

Community ambassador, Patrick Sun joined the team not long after moving to Newcastle from Hong Kong in 2021. He soon become the main link with the Hong Kong community in the North East, sharing key health and covid information with his community. He utilised his community WhatsApp group to keep everyone up to date with the important health information the Trust was disseminating. Patrick has travelled around the region, usually after a long shift at his day job, with our positive action lead helping deliver workshops and representing the Trust at community events. He is always available to support new and old volunteers and he takes pride in representing the Trust. Having moved to the UK alone, Patrick has made his NEAS community ambassador volunteers as his family.

Alex Marshall - Newcastle

Alex started volunteering for NEAS as a volunteer porter at RVI hospital over six years ago. Alex was volunteering at the Wansbeck hospital as a meet and greeter for two hours, a few days a week. When Alex then got talking to other volunteers bringing in patients to hospital, he asked if he could apply as a hospital porter. Doing the volunteering role has given Alex the ability to progress his hobby from putting together a short film to having a children’s book published in the coming weeks. This has all been made possible by gaining the confidence and ability to speak up by meeting people. Alex volunteers 3 days a week, 4 hrs per day and absolutely lovers his role, stating that all he wants to do is give something back to the NHS as they saved his dad’s life.

Johnson Lawson - Sunderland

Johnson is a dedicated and professional community ambassador in Sunderland who has spent time attending workshops with the team and taking in all the learning to share with his community. He sometimes works with schools and has used this as an opportunity to teach young people on how to use the service correctly. When a request to support the project is sent out, he is always one of the first to volunteer and has even biked across the region during the bus strikes to get to an event. He is a key link to the community and always represents the Trust with pride and respect.

Daniel Thompson - Newcastle

Daniel has been a volunteer porter at RVI hospital since 2017, volunteering twice a week at the RVI hospital. Before this Daniel was studying health and social care with adults and children at college, whilst doing this the connections advisor mentioned that there might be some volunteering opportunities in some of the hospitals. He also did some research and found out about the volunteer porter role and applied. Daniel loves the role, enjoys meeting new people and has made new friends with the other porters,

Ian Short - Northumberland

Ambulance car service (ACS) volunteer, Ian started in 2020 volunteering four days a week. Ian originally was a user of the ACS service and because of this wanted to give something back when he retired. Ian’s wife works at the Wansbeck hospital, and she got the information for him about the role and so he applied. He enjoys meeting and helping people, and this is obvious from the appreciations received from patients about him. He’s a very well-respected volunteer.