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A co-response initiative between North East Ambulance Service and Cleveland Fire Brigade is proving an ongoing success across East Cleveland. The initiative aims to improve the survival rates for patients suffering from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.
Under the scheme, firefighters are dispatched alongside ambulance crews to confirmed cardiac arrest incidents. With fire stations also strategically located across the area this joint response helps reduce the time it takes to deliver critical life-saving interventions.
The initiative started in November 2023 in East Cleveland across Guisborough, Skelton, Saltburn and Loftus due to their rural location and teams have since attended 30 cardiac arrests.
Head of operations in the south, Andrea Raine, said: “Working together on cardiac arrest incidents allows us to reach more people within the area but also work collaboratively to increase survival rates in our community.
“Since the initiative began, each station has been involved in at least one successful Return of Spontaneous Circulation (ROSC), evidencing we are getting good CPR and defibrillation to the patient quicker, and freeing up more ambulances to attend other patients, the benefits of which is unmeasurable.”
Andrea Raine.
Simon Weastell, Assistant Chief Fire Officer and Director of Service Delivery at Cleveland Fire Brigade, said: “This partnership is a powerful example of how emergency services can come together to make a real difference when every second counts.
“Our on-call firefighters are highly trained, trusted, and based within the very communities they serve, often among the first on scene, especially in the rural areas of East Cleveland. By responding alongside our colleagues in the ambulance service, we’re delivering life-saving care, for cardiac arrests, more quickly and giving patients the best possible chance of survival.”
The integration of emergency services improves patient outcomes, particularly in time-critical incidents like cardiac arrest, where early intervention is proven to save lives. In the UK, over 30,000 people suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year, with fewer than one in 10 surviving. In the North East, around 2,100 incidents occur annually, with survival rates as low as one in 16.
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