How Does the Scheme Work?

A photo of a First Responder liasing with the Police after an incident.

The Scheme provides unpaid volunteers from HM Forces and the civilian community who give up their own free time to provide a dynamic First Responder Service to the community. The volunteers, once trained ‘log on’ at their duty Station in one of the charities specially equipped cars. From that point on they are at the disposal of Ambulance Control and may be positioned on standby at any point within that County where a need can be identified. When activated to a 999 emergency call the First Responder answer to the incident under emergency conditions, which they will have received training in how to do. This combined with the dynamic positioning of the vehicle normally leads to significant time savings in arriving on scene before the Ambulance. This time saving can and has saved lives when the patient has had a heart attack. The rapid intervention of these volunteers is also utilised in other emergencies where their response would be significantly faster than that of another frontline asset.

Availability

As all of our crews are unpaid volunteers this is never going to be a 24 Hr service. This does not mean however that you will never see them. All volunteers undertake a commitment to provide 4 units (1 unit = 8 Hrs) a month, however many do much more than this. The vehicles are out on average 20 days a month and are normally available every weekend. We are very careful to ensure that the individuals’ commitment to our scheme does not in any way conflict with their primary duty.

The Volunteers

A phot of Scott Bateman MBE founder and National Responder Manager of First Response.

Scott Bateman MBE,
Founder of First Response.

The majority of the volunteers in First Response are serving members of HM Forces coming from varied trades. We currently have volunteers who are Pilots, Aircrew, RAF Regiment, Doctors, Medics, Police and Technicians. All of these volunteers give up their own time to train and provide this service to the community. Although the MoD has no official link to First Response and provides no indemnities for its activities it does fully support the work carried out by the organisation and recently has commissioned a BBC programme to highlight the work of the volunteers. When the individual is selected for training the Charity informs the relevant unit administration staff so that a record of the individual’s participation is kept on their personal file. The individual will gain nationally recognised qualifications. It is the commitment of the volunteers that makes the scheme the success that it is, each individual is carefully selected to ensure their commitment is sincere and they are willing to abide to the informal commitment of their time.