Introduction

North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust has one of the largest and longest established Community First Responder schemes in the Country.  The Trust currently has 1200 Active Community First Responders shared between 134 teams throughout the region.  The Trust is also responsible for 200 Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) sites including Airports, Railway Stations, Police Stations, Shopping Malls and Sports Centres; training 1900 of the staff at these sites as Establishment Responders. 

 

NWAS responders attended 13,500 emergencies during 2007-8 and make a significant contribution to patient care.  Growing numbers of patient’s owe their lives to these important initiatives.

 

Why do we need Community First Responders?

Dr Richard Cummins from Seattle, USA, discovered that if a series of events take place in a set sequence, a heart attack victim has a greater chance of survival. These events are known as the “Chain of Survival”.

 

 

When put into practice, these events can improve the pre-hospital survival rate by 25% or 30%. The Ambulance Service believes that CFR’s trained to provide links 2 and 3 Can significantly improve the chance of survival.