Jon Bray is 35 years old, has a full-time job and a young family, but what makes Jon different to a lot of people in Suffolk is that he also volunteers as a community medical responder. A community scheme that enables volunteers to begin life-saving procedures often before an ambulance has arrived on scene. OneSuffolk talks to Jon about his involvement in this vital scheme…

The community responder scheme in Suffolk began around 6 years ago. Funded by community donations, volunteers are trained by the East of England Ambulance Service in a range of life-saving techniques including the use of a defibrillator and administration of oxygen.

Following a 999 emergency call, a community responder is called out via the ambulance control room in Norfolk. Information about the patient, such as age, sex, type of emergency and address is relayed by the control room via text message then usually followed by a phone call to determine whether the responder is able to attend. A community paramedic and/or ambulance may only be minutes behind them but those few minutes could mean the difference between life and death.

“Training is held over a weekend and is followed by a written and practical exam. We also have refresher training once a month at Aldeburgh Hospital on techniques such as maintaining airways and correct manual handling of patients” explains Jon. “There are 2 of us to a crew so any new volunteers will always go out with a more experienced member of the team, we have 5 volunteers in our area at the moment but could really do with 5 more!”. Jon has been a volunteer with the scheme for nearly 2 years after moving to Suffolk from Cambridge around 3 years ago, he has recently taken on the role of Saxmundham local co-ordinator.

“I have always had an interest in the ambulance service and admire the work that they do, becoming a community responder is a good way to give something back to the local community and I enjoy the work.”

Jon continues, “Most of the incidents we are called to tend to occur after 5pm, the most common types being shortness of breath, chest pain and collapse. We don’t get called out to anyone under 12 years old though and do not attend car accidents”.

“90% of the time, we are first on the scene, because we live locally we can be with someone within 4-5 minutes of being called out. We will always have the back-up of an ambulance crew though. Once the crew arrive we hand them a patient report form, this contains information about the patient’s airway, breathing and circulation, temperature, pulse rate and medication or any known allergies they may have. We also carry blood pressure monitors so we can assess whether oxygen administered is making a difference to the patient, this is also recorded on the form.”

Jon says, “We don’t have any special uniforms, just a florescent jacket, and we are not allowed to break the speed limits or have any special lights on our cars. We do carry quite a bit of first aid equipment with us but a lot of the job is also about reassuring the patient and their relatives whilst treatment is taking place.”

“Obviously not all incidents have a positive outcome but there are some happy endings, like when you have managed to stabilise someone having an angina attack to the point where they no longer need to go to hospital.”

Do people in the community appreciate the service? “Yes, I genuinely think they do, people do Thank us quite a lot and some have even been kind enough to donate money to the responders fund as a result of using the service.”

“Although, we really need more volunteers to train as community responders or even to act as a driver to a trained volunteer. Anyone who is interested in volunteering can find out more on our website”.

Jon would also like to add a special Thank you to community paramedic, Stuart Supple, for his dedication to the responder scheme. “He has given us amazing support and continues to do so for which we are all very grateful”.

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