Move to replace emergency fire co-response with volunteers deemed not ‘significant’
Some councillors have disagreed with the claim
The decision by South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) to replace its long-standing emergency co-response agreement with Cornwall’s firefighters with volunteers has been described as not being a significant move by those involved.
However, some members of Cornwall Council have disagreed and said rural communities in the Duchy are concerned by the change.
SWASFT will phase out fire co-responding when its has built up sufficient numbers of community first responders (CFRs). The volunteers are trained and dispatched by UK ambulance services in their local communities to provide essential lifesaving treatment and support in the crucial minutes before the ambulance crew arrives.
This includes responding to patients suffering from a life-threatening emergency such as cardiac arrest, stroke or breathing problems. Some specially trained CFRs also respond to less urgent calls such as patients who have fallen, pendant alarm activations or for patients where there is a concern for their welfare.
The changes were discussed at a meeting of Cornwall Council’s health scrutiny committee last week, with some members airing concerns.
"It doesn’t change the response, the availability of it or the services they deliver when they get there"
Neil Lentern, director of paramedic practice at SWASFT, told Wednesday’s meeting: “Our chief officers, both fire officers and the chief executive of the ambulance service, have collectively made an agreement to change the way we deliver some of the community services in Cornwall – replacing some of the fire co-responder schemes with community first responder schemes.
“Effectively, it changes the person making the response. It doesn’t change the response, the availability of it or the services they deliver when they get there. We will not remove any services that are led by fire co-responders currently unless we can replace them with functioning, available community first responder schemes.”
He added: “We recognise that in some pockets of rurality in Cornwall that might not be the case and we may continue to run some fire co-responder schemes. However, it’s our intention together to step back from any scheme where we can stand up a community scheme. I just want to reiterate that this isn’t a service that is going to stop, this is a service that we’re just going to change the people who are delivering it.”
Jane Whichello, SWASFT’s head of volunteering and community services, told councillors that five stations in Cornwall operate a co-responder scheme, with 23 fire co-responders currently working across Cornwall alongside 170 community co-responders.
“Our community co-responders across the whole of SWASFT, not just Cornwall, attended 30,000 patients for us. Fire co-responders attended 2,700 Category 1 calls and our community responders attended 7,500 Category 1 calls, so about three times as many.
"We obviously still want to have a really good relationship with fire and we work with them every day, and we’ve obviously got the tri-service safety officers, which wouldn’t be changed under these plans,” she added.
“It may be that we simply cannot recruit enough community first responders into the Lizard"
Cllr Rory Gow (Mullion & St Keverne, Liberal Democrat) asked how many community responders were based in the very rural area he represents, the Lizard Peninsula, as he was concerned about coverage in an area with restricted access to ambulance services.
Ms Whichello replied: “At the moment we don’t have lots of community co-responders around the area you’re talking about. So we are in a recruitment phase for Cornwall. We do recognise that some areas within the Trust are going to be more difficult to recruit in than others.
“It may be that we simply cannot recruit enough community first responders into the Lizard and therefore we have given a commitment not to turn off co-responding. We operate across a fifth of England, so in some of these tiny places and remote communities we recognise that maybe we cannot recruit sufficient numbers of people and we have to continue with fire co-responding in some form.”
Cllr Andrew Mitchell (St Ives West & Towednack, Independent), concerned about the ‘golden hour’ of saving someone who has a heart attack, addressed the SWASFT representatives: “I live in West Cornwall. Treliske is going to be over an hour away and the response time, with no disrespect to anybody in your organisation, isn’t great.”
He asked if SWASFT was talking to others about the changes other than fire office leads, such as the co-responders themselves and parish councils in areas where there will be a change to the current system.
Ms Whichello said the fire co-responders wouldn’t attend for anyone who had a heart attack or stroke as those are classed as Category 2 and they would only attend Category 1 where someone’s heart has stopped and they are not breathing.
Mr Lentern said the ambulance trust would consult with local communities about any changes that were significant, but the co-responder change was not deemed significant as the service would remain the same, but would just be carried out by different people, so parish councils had not been consulted.
Cllr Mitchell said: “That’s reassuring to hear but maybe you need to give that message stronger to come local communities who most definitely do feel and think that there is going to be change and it’s going to be a reduction.”
Committee chairman Cllr Nicky Chopak (Poundstock, Liberal Democrat) said she was pleased that there had been a “rollback” from a total change of swapping all fire co-responders with volunteers. “I would slightly disagree about whether it’s a significant change or not. I think communities would argue that if they’ve already been affected by this proposal they would see that as a significant change.”
Mr Lentern responded: “I appreciate your view, but we are armed with the data, we are armed with the information, we have met with local communities who are unhappy about this and when presented with the data and being able to make an informed decision, I think we haven’t yet found people that disagree in terms of whether it’s a significant change or not.”