Co-Responder

[andy9391]

hi there, ive just been reading all you're views on co-responders, just a couple of observations, the first one is arnt the fire services ment to render humanitairion aid (sorry about the spelling) also you get paid for doing  co-responding, ive been a volenter community responder for the past 5 years and since aprill this year when my local ambulance service merged with two others i now have to buy my own kit, use my own car, so you guys have got it made

[fleet57]

Would love to know more about this subject, can anyone give me any info, i am doing a short paper on this.

[xan]

hi there, ive just been reading all you're views on co-responders, just a couple of observations, the first one is arnt the fire services ment to render humanitairion aid (sorry about the spelling) also you get paid for doing  co-responding, ive been a volenter community responder for the past 5 years and since aprill this year when my local ambulance service merged with two others i now have to buy my own kit, use my own car, so you guys have got it made

This is how it works in my area- Co responder vehicles,training and equipment are supplied and paid for by the local Health trust.they are crewed on a small number of retained stations by personnel working the Retained duty system.they only crew the co responder vehicle when there are sufficient personel to crew the fire appliance.the Fire service pays the wages for the call outs.Therefore the fire service is subsidising the local Health trust.Yes the Fire service does provide Humanitarian aid,but does not mean it should do everything?.Shall I pop down the local hospital and carry out a few 'ops' to get the waiting times down?
I commend you for doing the voluntary work-but thats the point,you could stop.You should not have to supply your own equipment etc.The issue is about ensuring that the ambulance/paramedic service is properly funded to carry out its work,not,as in some other brigades,by taking fire appliances away from their primary role to bale out another service.The money my brigade spends on co responding means that I dont get the kit/training etc that i might have,while the local NHS trust is wasting money in other areas.I live in a town of over 100k,with just one ambulance available at night,next one 30 mins away(if it is not busy).Within 30 mins travel I have approx 20+ appliances available to make our attendance times.Maybe if the NHS funded their emergency response properly,they might have a chance of making their attendance times.

[lincoln]

In my area the fire crews co-respond in their appliance. There are local volenteer community responders and the fire service support them, only being sent to medical jobs when the community responders arn't available or are already at a call. The area is rural and ambulances, on a good day, are at least 20 minutes away. The responders - either FS or volenteer - only attend to give basic life support prior to the ambulance or fast responce paramedic arriving.

[Midland Retty]

hi there, ive just been reading all you're views on co-responders, just a couple of observations, the first one is arnt the fire services ment to render humanitairion aid (sorry about the spelling) also you get paid for doing  co-responding, ive been a volenter community responder for the past 5 years and since aprill this year when my local ambulance service merged with two others i now have to buy my own kit, use my own car, so you guys have got it made

Hi Andy

I take your point and totally agree with what you are saying, however i dont think the firefighters are moaning for the reasons you may think.

I think its more of a case of :

a) They dont want to see paramedics done out of their own jobs

b) Yes the fire service are here to help and want to save lives and there are circumstances where all emergency services priovide an element of overlap during busy times but with the best will in the world firefighters arent paramedics and shouldnt be considered to be competent to deal with complex medical emergencies

c) Fire service has always given casualty care / first aid and in situations where they are already on scene for another reason (ie RTC cut people out of car, ambulance has been delayed - casualty is suffering cardiac arrest)

d) statistics / call out figures are fudged as fire appliances responding to calls are recorded as being attended by ambulances, and those call outs are funded by the fire service not local NHS Trust Amb Service. This enables politicians to say "the ambulance service is meeting target response times no further investment required". Also if they think firefighters can take over the role as parameds then some bright spark will say "Ahhh we dont need to recruit as many paramedics next time round as we now have enough" in other words we will be doing them out of jobs - what if you really wanted to be a paramedic only to be told you now have to be a firefighter to undertake the role (and you werent in the slightest bit intrested in running up and down ladders?)

I think what Im saying is , yes by all means when the Ambulance Service is experiencing spate conditions lets help out, if we are on scene at an incident where the ambulance has not yet been called or has not yet arrived and urgent medical help is required then yes lets help

But responding to Ambulance calls permanently without the proper funding going into the ambulance service is a recipe for absolute disaster

We havent had the correct training for one and I fear lives may be lost as a result. We also doing the paramedics out of a job.

Paramedics are the experts for trauma / pre hospital medical treatment

If some people's arguments stand true we should all become combined law enforcers firefighters and paramedics!

[nottsfirebloke]

i HAVE A STRONG VIEW ON THIS MATTER, MY STATION WAS SELECTED TO RUN A PILOT CO-RESPONDER SCHEME (WHOLETIME), WE RECIEVED NO ADDITIONAL TRAINING OTHER THAN HOW TO USE A DEFIB ( BY THE WAY A MONKEY CAN BE TRAINED HOW TO USE ONE). 1 DAY LATER WE WERE TO START CO-RESPONDING, ABSOLUTE DISASTER, INCORRECT INFO, AMB CONTROL DIDNT KNOW WHO WE WERE, COMPLETE JOKE.

AS A BRIGADE AND WHOLETIME FBU MEMBERS WE REFUSED TO UNDERTAKE THESE DUTIES, THE FIRE AUTHOURITY DECIDED TO DEDUCT 10% OF OUR PAY FOR OVER A YEAR, (MANY THANKS TO THEFBU MEMBERS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY WHO WILLINGLY CONTRIBUTED TO THE NOTTS FUND).

The main point to make is it is all about the ambulance service reaching their targets, if a fire engine arrived within 8 mins and the patient died, great the target was met. However if a paramedic arrived in 10 mins and using their advanced skills the patient survived, oh **** the target was not met.

If we are expected to attend medical calls we should be trained adequately and appropriately.

Heard the phrase jack off all trades master of none!!!!! we cannot competently or safely be skilled at everything especially my colleagues in the retained sections who train for only 2hrs a week. Can we honestly say we can remain competent in firefighting and pretending to be peter the paramedic on 2hrs a week?

One final comment isnt it strange that it happens to be the retained stns that volunteer to undertake co-responding, could it be the extra calls and the extra pound signs?? or maybe the new overalls and medic badges

[lincoln]

Perhaps it is the £ signs and extra calls for some of the retained firefighters that made them take up the co responding role. Does anyone know how many co responding calls these stations receive compared with fire calls?
 But perhaps it could be that a retained firefighter lives in the community that isn't served by the ambulance service very well and when they hear that a friend, neighbour or family member, in that community, suffered a heart attack and had to wait 30 minutes for the nearest ambulance, they think " We could have been there to help until that ambulance turned up."  
 Perhaps he/she wants nothing more than a well funded ambulance service that would see paramedics and ambulances in abundance, able to reach all areas in time to make a difference. But will that ever happen?
 So these co responders and the local responders stop doing what they're doing, that will send a message to the ambulance service to get their house in order won't it? Will they flood areas with extra vehicles and extra paramedics? No, it won't happen.
What will happen, is that people in these communities, once served by responders, will still have heart attacks and the nearest Defib and oxygen will be 30 minutes away.

[kurnal]

Well said lincoln.
And when I have my heart attack I hope I'm in your patch rather than elsewhere.

The sad thing is that if it had been introduced in a more sensitive way many more areas would have the benefit of services - personally I dont mind who does it- shop keeper, postman, volunteer or firefighter. Seconds count after all.
I do agree that its the ambulance services job to give a decent level of service - thats what they get paid for.  That level of service should be publicised, supported by adequate resources and adhered to but when it cant be met I would be happy for the police, coastguard, community volunteer to help me out.

[Mike Buckley]

I agree with lincoln, from my experience the retained tend to be driven more by family history and service to the community than monetary gain. However....

It does seem that the whole issue has been dealt with in a very clumsy and devisive manner. Yes in the case of heart attacks and other first aid issues seconds do count and the faster help can be given the better the recovery will be. But the help needs to properly trained, equipped  and organised.

[nottsfirebloke]

TO KURNAL,

you quoted saying previously "if you have a heart attack you hope you are in a area where the fire service co-responds and not elswhere".

Who's area would you rather be in if your house was on fire or you were trapped in your car and the local fire crew were not available because young billy had a nose bleed, and the next nearest fire engine was 30 minutes away???

The fire service has always and always will provide medical care to the best of their ability throughout the course of their duties.However they should not be used as a undertrained inadequate alternative to a highly skilled paramedic or ambulance crew.

I fully support and admire individuals who co-respond as members of the public in their own time, what i cannot support is ,

My local retained fire stn, volunteer to co-respond, can respond on a fire engine with a crew of 3, however that then leaves the local community with no local fire cover, even when the fire appliance is completed its duties at a co-responding call it is still unavailable due to insufficient crew. The additional training is non existent, just another tick in the box for the fire authourity, and the ambulance service targets are sometimes met.

To much emphasis is related to heart attacks and defibs within this role, the majority of these calls attended are not genuine cat a calls. The reason defibs are found in train stns, shopping malls etc, if someone suffers a cardiac arrest they require treatment then and on the spot, not from a retained fire crew who take 5mins to respond to stn, travel time, call handling time, times up!!!!!

Be totally honest your and my community would be up in arms when a local death occurs because your fire appliance was unavailable because of it undertaking other duties. What people should be doing is lobbying their MPs in order to provide a adequately funded ambulance service.

As a previous post stated what next, friday sat nights, police are a bit busy should we put on our stab vests and patrol our local streets serving the community!! or the binmen are struggling with the extra rubbish over xmas, ill just put on my donkey jacket to serve the community.

Finally no one has answered the question " undertaking training of only 2hrs a week, is this sufficient to be a competent firefighter and a co- responder" , i dont think so

[lincoln]

The fire crews that co respond in our area can, as you say nottsfirebloke, respond on a fire engine with a crew of 3. But to do this means that that fire engine is already unavailable for fire calls. If they have a crew of four or more on their call out system then they take a full crew which would mean that they would be ready for a fire call as soon as the ambulance arrives. I'm also lead to believe that if they had a full crew of six and a fire call came through, they could leave 2 people to continue first aid and the rest of the crew would go to the new call.
 I live in an area with a retained fire station and I would hope that if, heaven forbid, I should ever need them, they are just a few minutes up the road. But I do know that some times they have to take their appliance to the nearest town to provide fire cover while the two engines from there are out on a call or not available. So what happens if I need them, then? Delayed attendance of a fire crew because a) they were sat at another fire station 20mins away or b) they were in the next village providing life saving first aid to someone? I know which answer I feel more comfotable with. Isn't there always a risk that someone could die in a fire because the fire service do undertake other duties and not just co responding?

 Again I whole heartedly agree that we need a larger ambulance service, but I just can't see it happening. Even if we continually badger our mps.

[kurnal]

No Nottsfirebloke
I didnt quite say that. I said: "And when I have my heart attack I hope I'm in your patch rather than elsewhere".

Meaning that I hope I dont have a heart attack in one of the many areas where there is no cover.

I fully support firefighters volunteering to give these additional services. I have some doubts as to whether it should - or can- be made compulsory  though. But nobody can deny its a most valuable and vital service that these volunteers offer. And when I am lying on the footpath sweating and with a life threatening vice like cramp in my chest I really dont mind who presses the buttons. So long as someone does and as fast as possible. It should ideally be the ambulance service and in my area I can expect one of those in my area in 10-15 minutes. But I am likely to die in that time. And I will die if they are out on another call.  

Crikey in a society in which the air ambulances and  mountain rescue organisations and lifeboats  would not exist but for charitable trusts, is any campaign to double the emergency ambulance availability and  halve the attendance times going to be successful in the short to medium term?  No way. The public would not foot the bill. There are no such campaigns so it can be assumed the Taxpayer is satisfied with the level of service.
Theres loads wrong with NHS Direct in my opinion and I greatly resent what has happened with the GP contract fiasco and the flying in of medical cover from Europe to cover weekends. But I dont see any move to increase local emergency cover.

The  local fire service also get involved in all manner of incidents and you could make the same argument against getting involved with RTAs, rope rescues and special services, or covering neighbouring stations patches. But we always deal with the call we have got and personally I dont have a problem if emergency critical medical support is added to the list- but only if the ambulance service cannot make timely attendance. But I absolutely agree that this should be subject to triage in the control room.

I do understand the arguments against- the propping up of under funded services, the bollox of  meaningless targets, the non availability of fire cover whilst care is being administered until the ambulance service or a community volunteer can take over. The whole argument is over defribs and as you imply this gives it a very narrow focus. Perhaps the argument should be widened to include first aid to any critical life threatening incident where a triage process identifies an urgent potential need?

[Mike Buckley]

kurnal, I don't think it can be assumed that the taxpayer is satisfied with the service. It is more the NIMBY principal. The taxpayer doesn't care about the service until he needs it and then he screams like mad when it doesn't work. In the mean time HMG is trying to paper over the cracks and hoping that the taxpayer won't notice. If it does get too bad, HMG can either introduce some rapid ill conceived legislation or hold a public inquiry under a pet chairman which will report after the row has died down and say what HMG wants it to say.

Sorry my cynicism is showing.

[Tony]

Interesting.  We have the same sort of thing - ambulance service having SDS problems so instead of fixing it, look for some sort of quick-fix.  My service is trialling the 1st Responder thing (supposedly for cardiac and breathing issues only).  But they're not too keen on the extra workload for us volunteers (99% of the service is volunteer).  Some of us want it, some of us don't.  But there'll be no forcing people to do the training - an advantage of being volunteer maybe?