Our History...
During a sunny British Summer afternoon in 2015, a group of Buckingham medical students were moaning about how far the pub was from the lecture hall when conversation was interrupted by the lights and sirens of an ambulance flying past... "Would you have to wait for an ambulance to fight through all the traffic from Milton Keynes if you needed an Ambulance?" was the next discussion
point. Turning to the all knowledgeable Google, we discovered the ambulance service tries to spread their ambulances out evenly, but often find themselves struggling to cope with the enormous work load...and despite a rigorous triage system, some patients do unfortunately have to wait for some time before help arrives; this is where the Community First Responder (CFR) comes into their own. CFRs are volunteers that are trained by the ambulance service and respond to these potentially life threatening 999 calls around their community. They often arrive before the crew, and render aid / initiate life saving treatment while the Ambulance crew makes their way through the a-road traffic. Especially important in towns like Buckingham, a quaint rural town located 30 minutes from Milton Keynes Hospital - an area where most ambulances are dispatched from following the local station closure a few years ago. Remarkably, CFR schemes don't receive any official funding and rely on 100% of public donations. In this, the medical students at Buckingham University banded together in late 2015, and the Buckingham Medical Community First Responders (BMCFR) was developed shortly after. As soon as we went live, we quickly realised the need to develop - within the first 3 months of operation we responded to over one-hundred 999 calls and were often called while off duty to see if we could lend a helping hand. Since starting, we have managed to train over 40 students, and we now cover a majority of evenings and weekends almost all year around. In the next 2 years, we have 4 main goals:
1) Raise enough money to develop training sessions for new responders and members of the public.
2) Develop enough to enable 24/7 coverage of our town.
3) Branch out into the neighbouring community and expand into Milton Keynes as some of our students move into the Hospital full time.
4) Provide town and charity events with first aid / medical cover - our first big event was the 24 hour Cancer UK relay which was fantastic! As a whole, we would like to thank the lovely people of Buckingham, and our ambulance service (SCAS) for all of the support in setting up. We have now set up this page so you can all follow our next steps in our adventure. If you would like to hear more about what we do, or if we can help with any teaching or events please do get in touch. Otherwise, if you would like to donate to us, please follow the link to our justgiving page - any donation of any amount would go a long way.
