Health White Paper - St John Ambulance - Submission - 19 July 2012

From: St John Ambulance Jersey 19 July 2012

Health and Social Services Review St John Ambulance Response

I am writing to set out what we believe St John Ambulance (SJA) can do to contribute to the H&SS Review. Whilst generally supportive of the paper and The Pathway to Change, I would like to focus on the support that SJA can provide in 2 key areas:

1. Services for Children
2. Services for Adults, in particular Care training

Firstly, I would like to advise on the contribution SJA Jersey makes to our Island Community.

I will cover briefly the areas in which SJA provide a variety of First Aid Courses: to our own members, to the commercial sector and to the community, and in particular to our young people and schools. I shall detail how many people we train in first aid, so that they can give first aid treatment on the spot, perhaps obviating the need for a visit to hospital or a GP. In addition, during their training, students use a number of scenarios taken from real events, so they are also well placed to see potentially dangerous situations arising and could prevent the injuries in the first place.

Our members provided over 22,000 hours of voluntary service in 2011. For example we attended 149 public events and treated 559 patients, of which only 53 were taken to hospital. We believe all this represents a substantial saving, not only of costs to the Health and Social Services and the States, but also through a reduction in the misery caused to individuals and their families following an accident or medical emergency.

Our programmes cover:

1. Commercial courses, to train up first aiders in the work place. Profits from these help

fund our free and not for profit courses for our community, our equipment costs, and other running costs. They cover first aid at work courses, early years, first aid, anaphylaxis first aid, automated external defibrillation, moving and handling courses, and re-qualification courses. This enables commercial and public sector organisations to meet their Health and Safety requirements for First Aiders. It is also worth noting that we currently have over 120 defibrillators on the Island, all provided by SJA, and many donated as a result of sponsorship raised by SJA, e.g. in the Parish Hall s. Training is provided by SJA.

2. Our community courses are either free or not for profit', (which means that a small charge is made to cover the first aid materials used during the courses) include: essential first aid, emergency and life support (child and infant),road users first aid, and Carers support sessions. Carers support is a key area where SJA contributes to our community and is expanded below. We also provide first aid training and advice to a large number of sports clubs and adult and youth associations. We would like to expand these programmes, particularly in the West of the Island and are currently seeking a suitable venue in the West.
3. Our (free, thanks to generous sponsorship ) schools programme continues to deliver

the Young First Aider scheme to 39 of the 41 schools in Jersey. As a result, nearly all Year 6 children receive a nationally recognized Schools First Aid Certificate.

4. Our (free, thanks again to generous sponsorship) Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) programme issued over 1000 CPR kits to all Year 6 school children in 2011 and in 2009 and 2010. We issued another 1000 plus kits to all Year 8 school children in 2010, who were in their Year 6 before we started the programme. Our feedback forms indicate that a further 3 people (typically Mum, Dad and another sibling), try the skill of CPR within the home.
5. We train our own members, adults, cadets (teenagers) and Badgers (5-10 years old) in first aid, competitions, presentations and other life skills. We also help train our young members for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. In common with other youth organizations (although we cover a wider range of activities than just youth) we provide a number of programmes to develop and engage young people.

In 2011 we trained a total of 4,839 people in various first aid courses, which represents 4.93% of the population (of 97,857). In UK the SJA county target is to train 5% of the population over 5 years-we achieve this every year. As our certificates are normally valid for 3 years before re-qualification is necessary, at any one time some 18% of the population have had first aid training and could assist to prevent accidents or to give help at the time of an incident.

We provide courses and pamphlets in Portuguese and Polish, having pioneered these within the UK.

A key area of support to our community is that SJA provides front line back-up to the States of Jersey Ambulance Service in the event of a major incident or medical emergency. This would include contingency planning for a major incident at the airport or the harbour, as well as for the various forms of flu pandemic that could come our way. This support comprises 4 ambulances and crews, giving nearly a 50% reinforcement to the SOJ Ambulance Service, plus our ability to deploy a further 30-50 personnel within an hour or two, from both our members and our Fellowship (who are all ex-SJA), to give first aid, take records, and look after the walking wounded and their families. A Memorandum of Understanding between SJA and the SOJ Ambulance Service was formally endorsed by the Minister of Health and Social Services in Dec 2006. The cost of a viable alternative back-up which could provide this level of support, at a time when it is likely the SOJ Ambulance Service would otherwise be overwhelmed, would probably be prohibitive. (Each ambulance alone costs over £70,000 and although we have additional costs in training and equipping our crews, the crews themselves are all volunteers)

Another key area is that we provide free, (thanks to sponsorship) support courses for informal, home carers (i.e. this does not include training professional staff at care homes). We estimate that there are over 7,000 informal/home carers in Jersey, some full time some part time and some perhaps only occasionally. This may involve looking after a spouse, child, parent, relative or friend. We currently run 3-4 courses a year, with 10- 12 carers per course. The courses cover principles of care, practice in handling techniques in a safe environment, stress management, advice from Social Security on benefits, advice from the Fire Service on safety in the home, and first aid. We have been successful in raising sponsorship for these courses so far and they are provided at no cost to the carers or to the States. We work closely with the Jersey Association Of Carers Incorporated and Social Security. Along with the SJA in Dorset, we pioneered these courses within the UK, which are accredited by the Royal College of Nursing and

the SJA National Headquarters. We could expand this programme to train more carers (if we can get them and attract sponsorship or other funding), and suggested this in our response to the Health and Social Services Review of May 2011.

Following our research with schools and the success of our adult carers programmes, we pioneered, within UK, the provision of courses for Young Carers, typically 11-16 years old, who usually help look after a parent or sibling at home, some before and after school and some every day and at every weekend. Le Rocquier school has so far provided two cadres, each of about 10 schoolchildren, over the past 2 years. This gives an indication of the potential size of the issue, which could affect 400 plus children Island wide. We have worked closely with the Education Department, Children's Services and the individual schools and their, relatively new, social workers to develop this programme, but there is still a lot more to do. These courses are provided through

sponsorship to date, at no cost to the schools or the States.

Finally, we also help train our young members to take part in local, regional and national first aid competitions and train teams from a number of schools ( not SJA members) for the UK National St John Ambulance Schools Competition, with considerable success in recent years. We have had sponsorship to help cover some of the costs, as most of our young members, or schools teams, and their families are unable to pay the travel and accommodation costs and would otherwise not be able to participate.

I hope the above gives you a clear view of the support and care we currently provide to our community, and identifies areas where we could maintain or expand that support if we are able to continue to attract sponsorship.

In summary, the Care courses we provide fit in very well with the aim of helping people to remain in their homes in the event of illness, or disability and to be looked after by their families. The Young Carers courses fill a vital need in supporting the many young people who end up with care responsibilities. We would welcome the opportunity to work more closely with H&SS, with the aim of forming a true partnership to play our part in the H&SS reforms and to achieve greater efficiency and integration of services.

Kind regards