Praise has been heaped on Fife’s first responders during a Scottish Parliament debate amid concerns opportunities are still being missed to save more lives.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and North East Fife MSP Willie Rennie has led a members’ business debate at Holyrood paying tribute to the East Neuk First Responders and calling on the Scottish Ambulance Service to expand its training to get more volunteers involved.
An independent community resuscitation charity, East Neuk First Responders aims to improve the survival chances of people who suffer life-threatening emergencies and is totally funded by public donations.
The charity needs more support to help provide the community with lifesaving equipment, training, first aid cover at events and health guidance.
Mr Rennie said: “The heart of the area is a good 20 minutes from St Andrews and 30 minutes from Leven, their nearest ambulance stations, so these services form a vital link in the chain of survival and increase the survival chances especially with heart attacks and cardiac arrests.
“I am delighted to pay tribute to the work they do for the community. They deserve recognition from this parliament. However there are a number of challenges faced by the group.
“The Scottish Ambulance Service insist that they should conduct all the training but have not provided sufficient and local training opportunities on a frequent basis.
“It means volunteers are giving up because they are required to wait so long or it is not feasible for them to access the training.”
Urging the Scottish Ambulance Service to increase its training provision, Mr Rennie said new technologies such as the Good Sam emergency responder app should be rolled out.
Good Sam, short for Good Smartphone Activated Medics,is the world’s most advanced emergency alerting and dispatching platform.
It has been in use in London for three years and is being rolled out across England in partnership with local ambulance services.
The phone app allows alerters to dial the emergency services and at the same time notify nearby medically qualified responders of a medical emergency.
That then means the latter may be able to provide critical help before emergency services arrive on scene.
“This means that each community has access to a large number of first responding volunteers at the press of a button,” Mr Rennie noted.
“The cost of this service would be free to responders and just £15,000 for the ambulance service.
“We’ve never had an ambulance on every street corner, or ever will.
“But we can have a lifesaver on every corner for next to nothing.”
A Scottish Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “The service is taking a leading role in delivering Scotland’s OHCA strategy through Scotland’s cardiac arrest strategy delivery specialist subgroup. Through the group we work closely with the BHF, Scottish Government and Edinburgh University and are currently looking at a strategy for PAD utilisation in Scotland.
“As part of this, the subgroup is examining the potential role of apps, assessing whether and how apps would fit into the Service such as GoodSAM.
“We also deliver a national training calendar of the Community First Responder training courses, including the foundation course for new starts, that all schemes are welcome to attend.
“The training is held at regional areas throughout Scotland all through the year.”
