New Year’s honour for Rothbury community first responder

*************EMBARGOED UNTIL 22:30 on 30 DECEMBER 2020 **************

A Rothbury first responder has made this year’s New Year’s Honours list in recognition of more than 20 years’ service to her local community.

Pam Clouston, aged 70, has been serving her local community as a magistrate for 24 years in both adult and family courts and as a community first responder with North East Ambulance Service for 18 years, devoting thousands of hours and helping to save countless lives.

Now, she has been awarded an MBE in honour of her voluntary work.

Pam has lived in Rothbury for 25 years with her husband David, who received an OBE 20 years ago in recognition of his services to North Tyneside. Together they run a family business with their son, Richard.

Pam began volunteering with North East Ambulance Service in 2002 after a notice in her local shop asking for volunteers to train in the use of defibrillators peaked her interest.

Since then, she has supported hundreds of patients in her local area – from giving vital life-saving CPR to simply holding a patient’s hand and checking their observations whilst waiting for the ambulance crew to arrive.

In more recent years, Pam has also undertaken additional falls training, which means she carries additional equipment to help patients up off the floor, leaving emergency ambulances free for more urgent cases.

“I began volunteering after Richard left home,” she said. “I had some spare time and wanted to do something useful which used my brain.

“My time as a magistrate has certainly never been boring. I sat as a senior magistrate, firstly covering North Shields and then North Northumbria. As a senior magistrate, I specialised in family law.

“Having always been interested in first aid, and being good at biology at school, the responder role really appealed to me. I think the role provides a necessary local service, either in the chain of survival or sometimes much less dramatic intervention helping a patient until a crew arrives.

“I have made some very good friends in the ambulance service who I would have never met if I hadn’t been a responder. I know the Rothbury paramedics well, and get very good support from them, and I know I can turn to them if I needed to discuss anything. We also get good support for our training and equipment from the responder team and there is always someone at the end of the phone for any issues.

“The number of calls I attend varies massively; I could attend four or five incidents in one week and then have nothing for a couple of weeks. I usually always have my pager on at home, including at night, although thankfully middle of the night calls are not too frequent!

“I have attended so many memorable incidents over the years; there are some sad memories but the ones that stick in your mind are the ones where you’ve been able to make a real difference to a patient’s outcome.

“I was very surprised to get this honour, and very pleased, as I feel our communities rely on volunteers, across all types of support they offer.”

Paul Liversidge, deputy chief executive and volunteer lead for North East Ambulance Service said: “Volunteers like Pam are a crucial part of the ambulance family, giving up their time and skills for free to provide an invaluable service to our patients alongside our ambulance crews, particularly in those first few minutes whilst the crew are travelling.

“On behalf of the ambulance service, I would like to congratulate Pam on this well-deserved recognition and thank her for her contribution over the last 18 years.”