The East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) Community Response Team has secured £607,000 in funding from NHS Charities Together and NHS England to invest into new volunteer projects as part of the Community Response Volunteer Strategy.
EMAS will be using the funds to:
- Set up eight new community first responder (CFR) schemes in underserved areas across the East Midlands
- Provide 10 new fully electric multi-capability Medical and Falls Response CFR cars
- Introduce 126 new community public access defibrillators in rural communities where there are above average occurrences of chest pain and sudden cardiac arrest, as well as ensuring all EMAS buildings and ambulance stations have a public access defibrillator on site available 24/7
- Equip a Volunteer Doctor Critical Care Car for East Midlands Immediate Care Scheme providing an enhanced critical care response to patients requiring support across the East Midlands
Additionally, 48 new CFR dispatch points will be set up, each including responder kits with full medical equipment, defibrillators and diagnostic equipment.
A Community Resilience Volunteer Trainer will be appointed to support both the Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest and Clinical Quality Strategy, delivering CPR training across all wider communities.
Alongside them will be an established Volunteer Operations Support Worker to assist A&E and Patient Transport Services and relieve growing capacity pressures and demand for these services in all counties.
Michael Barnett-Connolly, Head of Community Response at East Midlands Ambulance Service said: “We are so pleased to have secured this funding which will enable us to do even more in the communities we serve. Our volunteers make a huge and valued contribution at EMAS and this work will make a difference to the lives of people within our communities across the region. Through the giving of their free time to support staff and patients, more lives will be saved.”
