Life-saving volunteer drive in Northumberland
Lifesaving skills for Northumberland residents are set to be boosted with a recruitment drive for community first responders.
Community First Responders (CFRs) volunteer to help North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) by responding to life threatening emergencies within their local community prior to the arrival of an ambulance.
They exist in cities, towns and villages where it may be a challenge for the emergency ambulance to arrive within the crucial first few minutes. Their aim is to provide immediate care to a patient where every second counts; a patient who suffers a cardiac arrest stands a much better chance of survival if someone with a defibrillator can attend the patient in the first minutes of collapse.
Responders are everyday members of the general public who are trained by NEAS in basic first aid and life support. They are provided with oxygen and a defibrillator and are deployed by NEAS to life threatening emergencies, such as chest pain, breathing difficulties, cardiac arrest, and unconsciousness, if they are the nearest resource, followed by the next nearest emergency care crew.
In 2016, there were 189,931 999 calls for the Northumberland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area. Of those, 26,341 incidents were prioritised as life threatening or potentially life threatening.
Of those incidents, 1,477 were responded to by community first responders.
CFR schemes are already established in Berwick, Belford, Wooler and Seahouses.
NEAS now wants to boost these schemes with additional volunteers, as well as setting up new schemes in North Northumberland, including Holy Island and the Borders.
As well as the CFR schemes, there are also more than 75 community public access defibrillators (CPAD) across Northumberland, with hundreds of members of the community trained by NEAS to undertake basic first aid.
Community first responders often help to deliver this training. Over the last year, more than 100 hours were given by CFRs to help train nearly 2,000 members of the community across the North East.
Volunteers attend three days of initial training with an annual re-certification and update. CFRs can choose how much time they give up to respond.
For more information and to apply, visit www.jobs.nhs.uk and type in the job reference 340-CFRN-12-16.
Alex Mason, NEAS Community Development Officer, said: “Across North Northumberland we have a range of resources available to support people in their hour of need, including emergency care ambulances, community paramedics and a number of community access defibrillator sites.
“Our community first responders are based in the community and can be on the scene within minutes, administering life-saving first aid while an ambulance is on its way.
“Their role may be to simply provide vital reassurance to patients and their families, and gather information until ambulance clinicians arrive or in extreme cases such as a cardiac arrest, perform CPR and use a defibrillator to deliver a shock to the person’s heart.
“We have some amazing first responders already in Northumberland but, as we look to provide cover as near to 24 hours per day as possible, we’re looking for more enthusiastic, caring individuals who are willing to volunteer to join them in supporting people in their community in times of a medical emergency. In return, we will provide you with full training and the appropriate equipment.
“First responders come from all walks of life and volunteer for many different reasons. You won’t need previous medical experience as training is given. All you will need is a caring attitude and be able to cope with potentially distressing situations.”
Martin Spruce, aged 64, of Bamburgh, is a self-employed electrician, responding 24/7 when needed in his local area.
In the last six years of responding, Martin has also raised money for seven defibrillators for his area and trains people in CPR.
Last year, he was rewarded by NEAS for his efforts by winning the Volunteer of the Year Award at the Trust’s Beyond the Call of Duty Awards.
“I love doing it,” he said. “I care about people and the appreciation you get is tremendous. When I walk in they are frantic but when they see me it’s the relief of having someone there.
“It’s down to us to do what we can until the ambulance arrives. You comfort people and do your best. It’s not always easy, especially when you’re doing CPR on someone you know, but then the family come back to you and tell you what it means to them.
“I did CPR on one lady for an hour and used the defibrillator on her four times and she was talking to her daughter that night. When you’re able to do that, it’s really special.”
Notes to editors
Notes to editors:
North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (NEAS) covers 3,200 square miles across the North East region. It employs more than 2,500 staff and serves a population of 2.7 million people by handling all NHS 111 and 999 calls for the region, operating patient transport and ambulance response services, delivering training for communities and commercial audiences and providing medical support cover at events.
In 2015/16 the service answered 1.160 million emergency 999 and NHS 111 calls, responded to 295,855 incidents that resulted in a patient being taken to hospital, treated and discharged, 19,949 patients with telephone advice and treated and discharged 85,021 patients at home. In the same year, emergency care crews reached 132,948 Red incidents within the national target of 8 minutes.
What is the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest?
A cardiac arrest is essentially a failure of the heart's electrical system. The likelihood of a satisfactory outcome diminishes with the passage of time. The only intervention which can restore a normal heartbeat is an electrical counter shock or defibrillation. A patient should receive such treatment within a matter of minutes in order to improve the patient outcome. For every minute defibrillation is delayed approximately 10% of victims will die.
This critically short timeframe can be expanded if effective cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is provided by a bystander, but the internationally recognised target is to defibrillate within five minutes for out of hospital arrests and within three minutes for in-hospital arrests.
A heart attack victim, unlike the victim of a cardiac arrest, usually remains conscious. Whilst the onset of symptoms may be sudden and acute, a heart attack is not a sudden and complete event. It is rather a process of injury leading to heart cell death which whilst it may continue for up to 24 hours is usually 90% complete at 6 hours. The mechanism of injury is not electrical but rather a blockage of one or more major heart arteries resulting in oxygen deprivation of an area of heart cells, which over time progresses from injury of the affected cells ultimately to their death.
The critical patient intervention is the clearing of the blocked artery either through the administration of drugs, known as thrombolytic therapy, or through a surgical procedure involving inflation of a tiny balloon in the blocked artery called primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI). Whilst the goal is to undertake this intervention as quickly as possible (as the extent of cell death is progressive) to have any significant impact this must usually be achieved within 150 minutes. Across the North East there are two PPCI units in Newcastle and Middlesbrough