As Christmas fast approaches and in our third month of fundraising, we thought you may like an update on how our campaign, our funds and our team are doing...
Firstly, let's start with the team! They are stars! All of them! From admin to responder. They do not get enough praise and their commitment has remained unwavering throughout the entire year. Our responders have provided nearly 7,000 hours On-Call over the last 12 months and have attended nearly 200 Emergency Call Outs to their rural communities.
We are hoping that in January 2021, we will be able to open recruitment officially, being able to welcome 4 new CFRs to the team to try and reach our optimum numbers. However, this will bring about it's own set of challenges by this each CFR will need funding for their kit to be purchased. Thankfully, we already have the AEDs, so the majority of this cost if covered of the circa £1,500 it costs to equip each one. Our funds have not looks great this year, especially as we lost nearly £5,000 in fundraising due to the pandemic from medical cover we would have provided at events. But, we have been able to keep steady with our current savings... but these will not last forever!
Lastly, THANK YOU to everyone who has donated so far. We began running with the "Tank of Fuel" idea as a way of encouraging those who had not been using their car during lockdown to donate what they had saved through not putting it into their car and this has worked well. We have new decals, kindly donated from Our Sign Shop - Leamington on our response car highlighting the fundraiser.
And, if you are reading this, wondering whether to donate... obviously we think it's a great idea! It's for our patients... Help us build stronger, more resilient communities! Help us keep helping you.
Lastly, we want to wish, each and everyone of our supporters a very safe and Merry Christmas and well wishes for a better 2021! (Also, if you long for a bit of festive laughter, please head over to our Facebook page @EttingtonCFR to see a video from our Responders)
We are drawn from all walks of life, engineers, project managers, teachers, sports centre managers, ambulance staff, midwifes, retirees and many more! With one specific, passionate, aim -
To provide emergency medical care for small, rural communities in South Warwickshire where they would usually wait an extended period of time for an ambulance to arrive, utilising the time and skill sets of First Responders, to ultimately save lives and reduce suffering. This one aim is what makes our team special.
We are integrated with the West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Trust (WMAS). They provide us with all of the required training, professional standards, integrated emergency operations centre dispatch, a management structure and regional forums.
WMAS dispatch us to incidents when they are triaged as meeting the criteria for a first responders. Whomever from our team is booked on duty and within the allocated response area, will book mobile and attend the scene to provide care and treatment in lieu of an ambulance arriving.
Our response vehicle is an incredibly useful resource for our team, being an highly visible asset, utilising the best in current emergency response technology such as a Terrafix Mobile Data Terminals and Trust Issued Radio Handset (the same as issued to the ambulance crews), to provide the most efficient response to an emergency. Our response vehicle is currently utilised on over 60% of all of our responses. With the other 40% made up of individual responders using their own personal vehicles.
Our current Fast Response Vehicle has just surpassed its 10 year anniversary, a 2010 plate Ford Focus Estate. It has lived a hard life. And in rural South Warwickshire, being driven down narrow farm tracks, over fields, in a quarry and many other locations... she has occasionally let us down. In recent years in such a way as damaging her clutch, flywheel and synchromesh on a 999 call in 2018, this cost over £1,300 to repair. Our response car subsequently ended up with a broken driveshaft and power steering unit in 2019 and later ending with a damaged engine bracket causing other damage. Each time, we were fortunate enough for a local mechanic to be willing to fix us up and get us moving, on good will alone, however, we fear this may soon run dry. Alongside this, we have had numerous electrical issues from our now archaic electrical control systems used for all of the additional equipment we have installed in the vehicle, meaning the occasional flat battery, unusable Terrafix computer and depleted medical equipment batteries, hence causing a further knock on affect to our patients.
Initially, we purchased this vehicle when we covered only part of the area we do now. In 2017/18 our response area grew exponentially, from 70sq miles to 120. With this, an increase in versatility of environments we attend also grew and it became soon apparent that our current vehicle was not able to really handle all of these. Especially during the winter months when our communities often become cut off, isolated and during a medical emergency, normal ambulance are unable to get to them. Such as with the snow of 2018 and the floods in late 2019.
So, with this, we are aiming to fundraise to purchase a suitable 4x4 response vehicle, to be marked up in associated hi-visibility markings, with our team logos, emergency communications equipment such as base unit and new Terrafix technology, boot racking and possibly to be kitted out with new medical equipment.
Even within the clutch of a global pandemic, our team have still continued to provide On-Call support to our local communities, actually with an enhanced coverage as many of them are either home working or furloughed. These volunteers are willing to put themselves in the 'Hot Zone' of the Coronavirus and risk their own health and wellbeing to continue to provide this service! To date, we have attended nearly 40 Query, or Confirmed Covid-19 incidents.
In 2020, we had a host of pre-planned and booked events where we would provide medical cover to help us raise money. However, in early March we had cancellations from each and every planned event up to the end of October. This was a secured income of over £4,000. Gone. Instantly.
This is where we need your help! Our fundraising project will simply fail, without shares, likes and most of all donations. We accept, and are extremely grateful for any amount people are able to donate as it all does add up!
Our aim is to fund a 4x4, fully marked and kitted response vehicle to support our activities throughout the year. Our aim is for this vehicle to have a life cycle of a minimum of 10 years to help sustain our response profile to the most critically unwell and injured people across South Warwickshire.
We currently have a project team from within our charity and from local communities with people offering their time and skills, dedicated to helping us succeed, obviously alongside other duties such as responding and generic administrative tasks. Our contact details are available on our website.
www.ettingtoncfr.org.uk
* Charities pay a small fee for our service. Find out how much it is and what we do for it.
