LIFE in Nantwich could get perilous
for anyone who is involved in an emergency such as a heart
attack or a diabetes episode, or who needs pain relief. Unless, that is,
campaigners could halt a proposed change in the First Responders
service.
First Responders, as
you may know, are the volunteers with full time jobs (the town's
four are retained firemen) who race to the scene of an
accident or attend to someone who has suffered a heart
or insulin problem - or, indeed, any other emergency - before
an ambulance can get to the scene. Target time: eight minutes.
THESE were the main concerns at
a public meeting on the matter in Nantwich Civic Hall on April
12, 2008, sponsored by Nantwich Town Council,
Those at the meeting
were told
of an ambulance which took 45 minutes to reach a serious road
traffic accident because it was sent out from Wilmslow in North
Cheshire where it had been on its last call out.
Ironically it
had to travel past Leighton Hospital to reach the emergency. Of
course, the First Responders do not have space in their vehicle
(the size of an estate car) to transport patients to hospital -
even if they were allowed to do so.
The problem was that
North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) - a quango, apparently, and
so not elected by the general public - was standardising its
service after the Cheshire trust area was merged with those of Manchester
and Lancashire. It had been claimed this would mean the Nantwich
paramedics being brought down to the level of other, less
trained, volunteers.
And not just Nantwich, it seemed. First Responders from other Cheshire
areas said they would be similarly affected.
If the changes were
introduced, First Responders would not be able to:
ladminister aspirin to anyone suffering a
heart attack;
ladminister Hypostop for a diabetic
emergency;
ladminister Entinox for pain relief;
luse a bag valve and mask (as
seen on TV) to administer 100% oxygen (a "pocket" version,
which I believe is a plastic barrier for First Responders
giving "mouth to mouth" resuscitation is going to be used
instead);
lattend to children under 14;
lattend to
old people suffering, for example, a fall in the street;
lattend road traffic accidents;
or
luse their siren and flashing
lights on their way to an emergency.
It seemed that initial training
of First Responders would be reduced from 40 days to 28. All
First Responders undergo on-going training - but this would
obviously be less than previously undertaken.
With unquestionable
logic, Nantwich Town Councillor, Steve Hope, asks
"Why don't they (the North West Ambulance Service) say the rest
of the region are not up to scratch and bring them up to the
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South Cheshire level rather than
bring South Cheshire down?"
In
view of what was said by other First Responders at the Civic
Hall, Cllr Hope would have to widen this comment to include
other parts of Cheshire.
One First Responder
said that if the new standards were brought in the medics would
leave the service rather than be faced with the task of telling
people facing an emergency that they couldn't help them.
"We do not want to be
put in the position where we have people thinking we could have
done more for them," said one First Responder at the public
meeting.
The hour-long public
meeting was a mix of "evidence" from First Responders and
comments from the public - far too much to do justice to it on
these
webpages.
A grateful man praised
the work of the First Responders who had attended to him when he
had had a bad asthma attack.
One man whose
non-attendance was regretted by the audience was John
Burnside, NWAS Chief Executive, who cited the closeness of the
May 1 elections as a reason for him not getting involved in
discussing an issue that could influence public opinion.
That didn't go down well at the public meeting.
The then Town Council
Chairman, Cllr Bill McGinnis - who conducted the
meeting - said this was a
Nantwich problem not a political one and pointed out that there
were people and councillors of all political persuasions at the public meeting.
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ON another front, the
Town Council were to call on Mr Burnside to delay any changes
until after the County Council's Health Scrutiny committee has had a chance to
discuss them on May 1.
The First Responders
were partly sponsored by the Town Council and "is viewed by councillors as a key component in the emergency health services
on which townspeople rely," said Cllr McGinnis in his annual
council report, adding: "We view this prospect (the change of
service) with alarm."
As well as Cllr
McGinnis, the platform party comprised:
Gavin Palin, one of the
Nantwich First Responders;
County Councillor Mrs Dorothy
Flude (Crewe South, attending on behalf of Nantwich MP, Mrs Gwyneth
Dunwoody, who had just undergone major heart surgery);
[Councillor Flude died in 2020].
Cllr Arthur Moran, a Nantwich County Councillor,
a Nantwich Town Councillor, and a Crewe and Nantwich Borough
Councilor;
County Councillor Allan
Richardson (Cholmondeley) who was also representing Stephen
O'Brien, Shadow Minister for Health and MP for Eddisbury),
and
Nantwich Town Councillor Keith
Cafferty (Vice-Chairman).
Cllr Steve Hope was in charge of a
microphone that was passed to members of the public to express
their views, and there were other councillors in the audience.
All spoke during the meeting.
If the powers-that-be
in the North West Ambulance Service
think that the people of Nantwich were going to simply roll over
and die, they showed that the NWAS should think again.
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