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Tower and Town, June 2015

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Swift Medics

Wiltshire’s Emergency Volunteer Doctors

SWIFT Medics is entirely dependent on donations from the people of Wiltshire and local organisations and is most grateful to Tower and Town for the generous donation recently given and for the support of local communities Swift Medics Graphthroughout Swindon and Wiltshire.

When someone is badly injured in a traffic collision or other medical emergency, getting the right clinical help quickly to those involved can literally be the difference between life and death, as well as preventing long-term, life-changing injuries.

In Wiltshire and Swindon, a key part of that response is provided by SWIFT Medics – a team of dedicated volunteer doctors ready at a moment’s notice to respond to emergencies and provide essential life-saving treatment.

Working alongside ambulance crews and other emergency services, SWIFT Medics doctors play a vital role in ensuring seriously injured or critically-ill patients receive essential treatment at the scene – in effect bringing the hospital emergency department to the patient, often in difficult and dangerous situations such as an overturned vehicle at night.

Despite the close working relationship with other emergency services, and the fact that they are activated to incidents via the ambulance service control room, the pre-hospital emergency care provided by SWIFT Medics is not funded by the NHS or central government.

SWIFT Medics began life in 1996, since when it has attended thousands of emergencies. Each year, team members typically attend in excess of 250 incidents providing enhanced medical care to patients throughout Wiltshire and Swindon – and sometimes beyond. Without that intervention, around one in six of those would either have died or suffered permanent, life-changing disabilities.

In such situations, seconds count; getting advanced clinical care to those patients as early as possible in the first 60 minutes after the emergency occurs – known as the golden hour – has a significant impact on the eventual outcome.

Since September last year, the team’s ability to provide that rapid response has been enhanced by the donation of a dedicated, fully-equipped rapid response car by Dick Lovett BMW Hungerford – the distinctive 3 Series Touring X Drive is already becoming a familiar sight on the county’s roads as it speeds to the next patient whose life may be hanging by a thread.

The Cost of Keeping a Doctor on the Road for a Year

SWIFT Medics volunteers are all either GPs or hospital doctors, who donate their own time free to help people suffering medical emergencies in Swindon and Wiltshire.

Thanks to a close working relationship with the South West Ambulance Service (SWAST), SWIFT Medics receives financial help with the initial costs of training and equipping new doctors. However, there is no statutory funding for running costs – including the use of doctors’ own cars to attend emergencies or for the medicines they use.

As shown in the table the average cost of keeping each doctor on the road in 2014 was £3,596.

Swift Medics Spreadsheet

Dr Jonathan Glover

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