Themes
- Volunteer Instructors working within the community
- Volunteers from diverse ethnic backgrounds delivering culturally appropriate training
Bart’s City Life Saver (BCLS) is an independent medical charity, based at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, funded by donations, course fees and support from the hospital. The project began in 1986 with around 70 volunteers, but now has a more manageable 20 volunteers, all of whom work in the main, at Bart’s Hospital, facilitating training, based on guidelines as laid down by the Resuscitation Council (UK). This training enables people to assist in the resuscitation of anyone who becomes unconscious, stops breathing or loses circulation. Training also covers recognising the signs of a heart attack and how to treat both choking and severe external bleeding.
Recruitment and diversity of volunteers
People who wish to volunteer do not need to have a medical background, although generally volunteers tend be to medical students, nurses, fitness instructors and sometimes refugees and asylum seekers who have been clinicians in their home countries but are not currently able to practice medicine in the UK.
Volunteers (some of whom are Millennium Volunteers) are mainly recruited through volunteer centres and are from diverse ethnic backgrounds, and range from age 18 to over 60 years old.
Training the instructors
All volunteers attend an evening course to ascertain their level of interest, and their skills are then assessed. Training is delivered in lay person’s language making it accessible to all potential volunteers. Volunteers have an informal interview followed by an induction programme which identifies any problems or fears they may have, then they are asked to give their first training session as soon as possible after this. Often volunteers are nervous about holding their first session so a full time member of staff will sit in, and offer support and guidance. The group will consist of only 2 or 3 people for this first session. Trainer skills are assessed annually as the quality of the training volunteers receive has to be controlled due to the nature of the course content. A full-time member of staff is present at all training delivered by volunteers.
Working in the community
Volunteer trainers offer basic life support training to a wide range of people, e.g. Doctors and Dental practices, Cardiac Rehabilitation Centres, (linked to Primary Care Trusts), and they have in the past trained the British Armed Forces in Germany. The current focus is on training employees in City firms. Along with the City of London Police, (who attend on average 120 potential cardiac calls a month) many companies in the City now have talking defibrillators (an easy to use machine which will tell it’s operator whether to deliver a shock or not) to a casualty with no circulation, providing help in the first vital few minutes while waiting for emergency support to arrive. Volunteers can help to train staff to use these in the event of a medical emergency. Rescue plans are devised since many City firms are based in high rise buildings, and it is essential that defibrillators are placed in the correct place, anyone who has attended the Initial training day can use them. A few weeks after training has been completed, volunteers will return to companies (with a full time member of staff) to stage a ‘collapse’ and monitor how employees react to this. Every six months the trainees undergo refresher training to keep their skills up to date.
Tower Hamlets Emergency Life Skills Project (THELSP)
Bart’s City Life Saver secured funding in 2001 from the NHS and the Mayor of London to develop a project for people who are less likely to attend a public course at Bart’s Hospital, but who are still at risk from heart disease. It was identified that deaths from Coronary Heart Disease in the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets were 76% higher than the national average. Although there is no medical evidence as to why this is the case, it is suspected that many recently arrived Bangladeshi people do not take enough exercise, eat a high fat diet and it would appear that Bangladeshi men often smoke.
Culturally appropriate training
There are currently 12 volunteers involved in THELSP. They are predominately Bangladeshi however, there is 1 Caribbean and 1 European volunteer. As the ethos of the project is to be community-led and culturally appropriate, volunteers train community members where they request it, for example, in the mosque, or with young parents in primary schools. Training is given in lay person’s terms and often delivered in Sylheti as well as English. It is hoped that the model can be extended throughout East London, particularly in areas where communities are deemed at high risk of Coronary Heart Disease. Bart’s City Life Saver has recently gained further funding to continue with the development of this work and to attract volunteers from a variety of communities with diverse ethnic backgrounds including asylum seekers.
For further information contact:
Gill Swain
Head of Training
Bart’s City Life Saver
St Bartholomew’s Hospital West Smithfield
London EC1A 7BE
Tel: 020 7606 3669
Fax: 020 7600 3638
Email: gillswain@bcls.org.uk
