Axing vital Devon emergency response service ‘could put lives at risk’

The ambulance service has been urged to rethink plans to axe fire co-responders who can often be first on scene and make the difference in saving lives.

A meeting has heard moving stories from people who believe their loved ones would have died if fire fighters in their role as medical emergency co-responders had not been there to provide vital treatment before paramedics could arrive.

The strength of feeling from the public and members of Devon County Council’s health and adult care committee saw South Western Ambulance Service Trust (SWAST) asked to provide more data to support its plans and return to present its findings in September.

SWAST wants to try and replace the scheme with volunteer community first responders, but stressed in a two-hour grilling by councillors the fire service aspect would only be disbanded if enough volunteers can be recruited.

Co-responders are deployed by the ambulance service when it cannot respond as quickly as it would like or when the circumstances require the fastest response.

Fire co-responders, who are present at 15 Devon fire stations and can make a significant difference, especially in more remote areas, cost £80 per deployment, whereas the costs associated with their voluntary counterparts means it only costs around £20 per time.

However, SWAST boss Dr John Martin told the meeting their concern was based on the quickest response time and not cost saying community co-responders could depart directly from home whereas fire fighters had to get to the fire station first.

Councillors heard from Trudy Bowles, the practice manager at Hartland GP surgery, who said fire co-responders had saved her husband Mike’s life in 2010 after he suffered a cardiac arrest.

Their care meant he was kept stable enough until further help arrived, and he was transferred to intensive care where he remained for two months.

Mrs Bowles said: “The fire co-responders sustained Mike long enough to ensure he got the critical treatment he needed.

“Mike passed in December 2023, but because of those three remarkable and highly trained fire co-responders, he was given the chance to see his daughter married, meet his grandson and have 13 years more of marriage.”

Mark Nesbitt, who spent 15 years in the fire co-responder team in Hartland, said during the 25 years of the initiative there, it had attended around 1,000 casualties on behalf of the ambulance service.

“We are trained by the ambulance service and carry their pagers and we are on call all the time,” he said.

“We go in teams of two and we are blue-light trained, so we provide the fastest response in fully-equipped vehicles.”

Mr Nesbitt added he had attended category 1 incidents – the most serious medical emergencies – at pubs, village halls and holiday cottages where the caller is completely unfamiliar with the area, as well as at beaches, farms and doctors’ surgeries.

He added: “The ambulance service might save a few pounds, but the long-term cost of life-changing patient outcomes will be far greater,” he warned.”

Most tragic of all was the account from Penny Dane on behalf of a Devon family, whose daughter awoke one night in 2020 to find her fiancé, Trevor, unconscious and not breathing.

In spite of the best efforts of the family to perform lifesaving treatment with the support of ambulance staff down the phone, a wait of around 40 minutes for paramedics to arrive led to Trevor needing to live in a specialist home, requiring 24-hour care and being unable to speak or communicate. He still resides there today.

Members of the health and adult care scrutiny committee claimed they felt the ambulance service was relying too much on the issue of cost when making its decision.

Councillor Jess Bailey said she had asked SWAST’s Dr John Martin to attend the meeting and explain why he wanted to terminate the 30-year fire co-responder agreement.

Cllr Bailey said she had been handed two petitions with a combined 5,400 signatures opposing any change and asked why his organisation wanted to ‘take away a vital lifeline that costs so little and means so much’.

Dr Martin said community first responders were ‘highly trained, reliable and fast’ and that while it was less expensive to use volunteers, he claimed the service’s core concern was speed because of the serious emergencies co-responders are despatched to.

He said: “Who can get there quickest is most important as we know for the best survival, you need someone there as quickly as possible to perform CPR and use a defibrillator.

“We will send more than one community first responder to a cardiac arrest where available and our data shows that cohort responds quicker.”

Concerns were raised about whether community co-responders would have the necessary equipment, whether there would always be more than one present and what assessment would be done to ensure their ability to perform the role.

Dr Martin assured those at the meeting the service would be robust, but repeatedly stressed that no fire co-responder scheme would be stopped unless the ambulance service could recruit enough volunteers in an area.

Councillors also queried whether data that showed community first responders had faster response times could be due to their locations, with some members predicting that most would be in urban areas where distances to incidents are shorter.

READ MORE: Devon Air Ambulance reports 'record-breaking year' as demand rises

In the 12 months to the end of June, Devon’s 81 fire co-responders attended 1,025 patients in cases where the ambulance service despatched them because it couldn’t reach them fast enough.

While community first responders attended 9,329 patients in the same period, Councillor Andy Ketchin noted the volunteers currently attend all categories of incident, meaning the data wasn’t comparable.

The fire co-responders were unable to respond to 619 incidents in the same period, but again, the equivalent data for community first responders was not supplied.

Gavin Ellis, chief fire officer for Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, said members of his staff that worked as co-responders took ‘pride’ in the role and noted that any efforts to get those firefighters to become community first responders would need to be carefully considered in case it had any implications on fire cover.

Torrington councillor Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin said she had ‘hoped to see more evidence’ behind the ambulance service decision and was ‘concerned by the statistics presented which are ambiguous and lack detail’.

She added: “Everyone is concerned by the decision to axe this partnership.

“Volunteers are fantastic, but shouldn’t we be trying to enhance the service and not replace one with another?”

Bideford and Hartland councillor Robin Julian said there had been a ‘massive response’ from residents keen to protect the fire co-responder scheme.

“I hope you don’t make any decisions until you have absolutely investigated absolutely everything and if there is a chink in anything, then we stay as we are,” he said.

READMMORE: SW Ambulance Service celebrates International Paramedics Day

Cllr Bailey ended the meeting by stating she wanted the ambulance service to do more work to justify the decision.

“I don’t feel, based on what we have heard today and the information provided, confident it is a sound basis for terminating the current arrangement and think we should be looking for more information, assurance and facts,” she said.

“We know our ambulance response times are one of the slowest in the country so it seems concerning that we have a potential change that could put lives at risk without all the facts about how it can be benchmarked against other areas and how it presents a safe option.”

The committee voted to request the ambulance service pauses the implementation of any changes and that it provides a report with further data addressing various concerns.

Dr Martin is likely to attend the committee’s next meeting in September.