What is a Community First Responder?
Community first responders play a vital role in our community. We are just ordinary members of the public who have been trained by the ambulance service to deliver life-saving skills pending the arrival of an ambulance.
Our responders mainly attend priority red calls and must be able to leave their home or work place as, as soon as they are received, in a similar way to which retained fire fighters, RNLI crews or other volunteer emergency services operate. Not a huge amount of time is required as a volunteer, as normal life can go on while a responder is on call.
The concept of Community First Responders originated in America through work undertaken by Dr Richard Cummins. He discovered that if a series of events took place in a set sequence, a patient suffering a cardiac arrest had a greater chance of survival. These events are known as the ‘Chain of Survival’.
If the Ambulance Service can send a Community First Responder who is trained in basic life support, in using a defibrillator and in administering oxygen, to a collapsed patient within three to four minutes, that patient’s chances of survival will increase by 10% for every minute that the Community First Responder is there prior to the arrival of the Ambulance crew.
Our responders mainly attend priority red calls and must be able to leave their home or work place as, as soon as they are received, in a similar way to which retained fire fighters, RNLI crews or other volunteer emergency services operate. Not a huge amount of time is required as a volunteer, as normal life can go on while a responder is on call.
The concept of Community First Responders originated in America through work undertaken by Dr Richard Cummins. He discovered that if a series of events took place in a set sequence, a patient suffering a cardiac arrest had a greater chance of survival. These events are known as the ‘Chain of Survival’.
If the Ambulance Service can send a Community First Responder who is trained in basic life support, in using a defibrillator and in administering oxygen, to a collapsed patient within three to four minutes, that patient’s chances of survival will increase by 10% for every minute that the Community First Responder is there prior to the arrival of the Ambulance crew.
- Here is a video about CFRs
- Above is a map of Essex, here you can see all the current groups.
- Here is some of the training that happens on the course and at local training.