Community first responders

Community first responders in Surrey started in March 2006 with our Cranleigh division being the first to set up a unit.

This has rapidly grown to the seven units, spread across the county. All units provide a very important service to their local community in partnership with the South East Coast Ambulance NHS Trust.

In cases such a chest pains or non-breathing casualties every second is critical to the casualty. We hope that our CFR units are able to save those vital seconds and minutes by being on-call in their local area and are able to respond if that call comes in.

What does a Community first responder do?

A Community first responder will respond to 999 calls made to the Ambulance Service in their local community. Appropriate calls are passed to the responder who will make their way to the call, observing all road laws, to give assistance to the patient prior to the NHS ambulance arriving.

Where are the units situated?

In Surrey we have units in Normandy, Cranleigh, Ewhurst, Shamley Green, Effingham, Ripley, Send, Chiddingfold and Churt. These schemes collectively have approximately 60 responders mostly covering up to 14 hours a day.

How does it work in Surrey?

The responder on call for a unit holds a pager and a mobile phone. The calls will come through on the pager from the ambulance control, automatically giving details of the emergency. If it is suitable to go and the responder is available, then they phone control on the mobile and state they are able to attend.

At this point the control allocates them to the call or declines. Some calls are declined because of issues regarding the safety of the responder. i.e violence, drink etc.

The responder then, if allocated, proceeds to the call in their own vehicle. Once the responder has dealt with the call they call in the final details to control and then return home.