My first 12 months as a Community First Responder for the Ambulance Service

[TL/DR] I’ve just completed 12 months as a volunteer with South Central Ambulance Charity who provide the funding for over a thousand Community First Responder’s (CFR) across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, and Oxfordshire. I’ve attended 355 category one and two emergencies over 1,150 hours logged on. I have learned a huge amount about myself, emergency care, the people in my local community and the amazing work the paramedic and ECA heroes from the Ambulance Service do in their course of their day jobs.?

To help keep this vital service on the road, I set up a giving page for my birthday. It costs ￡310 a year to keep a CFR on the road for a year. A big thank you to my friends, family and my Tanium work colleagues for their continued support for the charity and me.

https://scas.charity/

What I’ve observed from the Ambulance Service

12 months today after a rigorous interview, I was fortunate to start my training with the Community Engagement Training Officers of South Central Ambulance Service. Having completed the exams and real-life assessments, achieving my FREC3 certification, in First Response Emergency Care, I was ready to buddy up with experienced CFRs. Paul and Chloe who allowed me to ride shotgun in the SCAS DRVs, completing 22 hours and attending 10 emergency calls. I got to see first-hand what being a CFR entailed and the role we take to support the Service in arriving to category one and two emergencies in quick time due to our local proximity to our local communities to provide critical life support and reducing patient anxiety ahead of the crews’ arrival. For me, that’s Bracknell, Ascot, Sunninghill, Sunningdale & Wokingham.

Typically, these are life threatening emergencies, such as cardiac arrest, stroke, heart attack, breathing difficulties, catastrophic bleed, choking, or anaphylaxis which typically need a rapid response.

It has been an honour to spend the last twelve months working alongside the crews of the ambulance service during one of the hardest years in their history providing nearly 1,200 volunteer hours and attending 350 emergency calls. We're given a mobile phone with an NMA app that connects us to the dispatch centre and are assigned calls based upon skills set, proximity and availability. Some days you get your first on upon logging on and don't get home all shift, others you may not get a call at all. You are on standby to help when needed.

During the last year, I've met some amazing people from across the local community including neighbours and family friends, from 10 days old to 102 years, and got to hear some truly wonderful life stories. Regardless of background, or personal circumstance, to a person I've enjoyed meeting everyone I've been fortunate to help. A lot of what I’ve experienced with the Ambulance Service has several parallels to my day job as a Marketing Director at Tanium.

Team extend a finite resource and to feel like its infinite. During the pandemic, the Service was under huge pressure, which increased after lockdown, with call volumes increasing exponentially. But the support networks from the control centre, dispatch, to the attending crews made it feel like the resources were endless. The team approach is one I hold dear in my day job and that connectedness and trust between colleagues was apparent in every call and crew I met.

Standard operating procedures. From prioritisation of emergency calls through a schema of categorising how life threatening they are to allocating resources best suited to help. A host of playbooks, mnemonics and systems allow attending resources to follow standard plays that ensure nothing is missed when triaging patients.

Support structures. When you need help or backup, it’s there and its immediate. From the control centre IRD team to the Clinical Support Desk, Urgent Care Desk to back up from other crews when you escalate an incident. The most memorable being an emergency I attended where within minutes I had the support of the shift team lead, two paramedic units and the air ambulance. No one questioned why, taking my request at face value.

Professionalism. In every one of the 355 jobs I witnessed patient care of the highest levels, both medical and personal and a desire to remove anxiety and reassure patients. Despite some crews being at the end of a twelve-hour shift or having dealt with the increased pressures of the pandemic every crew I’ve worked at was in good humour and did everything that they could to help the patient needs and their family. No question either from a patient or me ever was ever dismissed and was answered wit

Care. Some incidents you attend are harder than others. When you are on a job for an extended period, someone from IRD will always call to check in, when you are on an urgent incident, you’ll get proactive calls or messages to let you know what you are arriving to or when backup will arrive. Even more importantly when are you finished on a job your crew, your dispatcher or CETO will check in to see if you are alright.

Reward & Recognition. From a simple gift box and thank you note at Christmas, a thank you and “good work” from a team leader to the opportunity to represent the NHS’ 73rd birthday at Buckingham Palace, it’s really the small things that mean so much. Just last week I attended a job with a paramedic I’d met three weeks earlier who updated me on a patient we’d worked on together and thanked me for the support. It’s these small things that make a big difference.

I describe Tanium’s culture as a team of adults doing their job and that's exactly how the ambulance crews approach the challenges they face. Tanium's cultural values are pretty much mirror the Ambulance Service’s ;

• We win as a team
• We do the right thing
• We are unstoppable

I’m only able to volunteer due to the support of my Tanium family. Whether it’s using my five paid Volunteer Time Off days a year to their support for my fundraiser, “Outrun the Ambulance” where we raised over ￡8,000 for the charity.

If you are looking to do something with your spare time, your local Ambulance Service is likely looking for support, so please consider to get involved or donate to the charity as they need hundreds of thousands of pounds to support their work, so donate generously.