I have recently become a voluntary community first responder with the South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) that covers Milton Keynes and the surrounding areas.

A community first responder is a volunteer who is trained by the ambulance service to attend emergency calls in the area where they live or work.

Our aim is to reach a potential life threatening emergency in the first vital minutes before the ambulance crew arrives on scene. Community first responders are sent by ambulance control to life-threatening emergencies such as cardiac arrests. We live or work in area where a group is set up and can get to an incident in just a few minutes while an ambulance resource is on its way. Our role is to help stabilise the patient and, in doing so, keep the patient alive until the arrival of the more highly skilled ambulance crew, who are trained to undertake further life saving techniques.

As a Community First Responder group covering North MK and the surrounding villages, we solely rely on donations to buy life saving equipment and update some of our kit to ensure the needs of the patient are met when on call.