November 2022 - CPR/Defib Awareness
Southwater Community Responders spent Wednesday evening delivering a CPR/Defibrillator Awareness Session at Broadbridge Heath Parish Council. Led by Nick Dowling with Angela Small supporting. Thank you to the Parish Council for inviting us and the residents that attended. Always satisfying to have more ‘lifesavers’ in the community.
October 2022 - Falls Vehicle
Yesterday evening the team visited the South East Coast Ambulance Service 'Make Ready Centre' at Gatwick. The visit was an opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the Community Responders Falls vehicle, Computer Aided Dispatch System and Radios. The vehicle will be used by Responders throughout the region to provide support to patients.
The team has been trained in supporting falls and the use of an emergency lifting chair. You may have seen the video we posted a few weeks ago. This means our volunteers will be able to offer those in need an improved care experience and get people who have fallen back on their feet as soon as possible.
Falls are a common, but often overlooked, cause of injury. Around 1 in 3 adults over 65 and half of people over 80 will have at least one fall a year. Most falls do not result in serious injury. But there's always a risk that a fall could lead to broken bones, and it can cause the person to lose confidence, become withdrawn, and feel as if they have lost their independence.
The NHS has information on falls and their prevention here
September 2022 - Queens Funeral Service
Angela Small, Southwater Community Responders Team Lead, attended the Queens funeral as part of a detachment from SECAmb driving an Incident Response Unit. "A very long day which passed without incident. It was a privilege to be asked to assist on such a momentous occasion."
September 2022 - Queens Death
Southwater Community First Responders would like to send its heartfelt condolences to the Royal Family following the death of Her Majesty the Queen.
July 2022 - New Sponsor
Exciting news 😁....Mark Henderson and Sarah Davy of Digital Resolutions Limited, a Southwater based IT company, have kindly offered to sponsor the charity. They funded the printing and distribution of CFR Information leaflets to the Parish. These leaflets highlight the work we undertake whilst providing valuable information on local hospitals and our ever-expanding network of Public Access Defibrillators (PADs). Although we are very active on social media, we want to ensure that our message and information reaches everyone, regardless of whether they engage with our Facebook and Instagram pages. This is a great opportunity for us to share important information about who we are, what we do and more importantly the location of our PADs. Our leaflets will be arriving through your letterbox early September.
When I met Mark and Sarah, I was interested to know why they wanted to support the charity. Both have parents who have suffered heart attacks with Sarah’s mother sadly passing away. Mark’s father lives in Sutton, and when he had a heart attack a first responder arrived within 3 minutes, the ambulance in 7 minutes and he was in hospital within 20 minutes. Living in a semi - rural area provides a number of logistical challenges for our emergency services. Mark and Sarah are both passionate about educating people on how PADs can improve patient outcomes.
They are both very active in the local community. During the first lockdown, Mark collaborated with Caroline Louise (the Co-op Member Pioneer for Southwater) to re-purpose donated laptops for home schooling. Caroline worked with Mark to ensure they were securely wiped and fit for purpose. What started out as 3 or 4 laptops rapidly grew to over 50 devices (laptops, PCs, and Tablets). The devices were redistributed to the local schools. In fact, they still get asked if they still offer this free service. The answer is always yes, and they dropped off 3 more laptops only a couple of months ago to one of our schools. They also kindly donated to our PAD campaign last October.
On behalf of the trustees and responders I would like to thank Mark and Sarah for their support.
Digital Resolutions offers consultancy/support services to small/medium size businesses. For a free, no-obligation discussion about your needs please contact them at https://digitalres.co.uk/
or 01403 613614.
June 2022 - Queen’s Platinum Jubilee medals
Pauline Flores-Moore, Angela Small and Nick Dowling pose with their Queen’s Platinum Jubilee medals, a special commemorative medal awarded to serving frontline members of the police, fire, emergency services, prison services and the Armed Forces.
April 2022 - Happy 10th Birthday Southwater CFR's
On the 1st of April 2012 the Southwater Community First Responders (CFR) team came into being. The team was founded, and led until 2020, by Southwater resident Pauline Flores-Moore. Over the past 10 years the team have been proud to attend countless emergency calls not only in the parish but also neighbouring towns and villages. In addition they maintain a network of 13 Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) across the parish, provide Basic Life Support/PAD training whilst raising funds for vital equipment and additional PADs. During the pandemic they supported the South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) by manning Welfare Vehicles, repositioning ambulances, delivering lateral flow test kits and performing temperature testing.
There are currently 4 responding members
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Angela Small, 14 years and Team leader
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Nick Dowling, 7 years, and Tutor
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Simon Francis 5 years and Senior Team Leader for Gatwick & Redhill Operating Unit
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Michael Durant 5 years
Rob Warde is a non-responding volunteer who joined in 2020 to support the charities online presence and fundraising.
Southwater Community First Responders is a registered charity (# 1127511) and is largely self funding. The charity helps support additional activities such as the Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) project. The trustees are Peter Buckley, Anthony Bull, Nancy Brock, Damian Cecil, Nick Dowling, Pauline Flores-Moore, Angela Small, Claire Vickers, Neil Worth and Rob Warde. With the fabulous support it gets from the village the team is in good shape to carry on supporting the local community when medical emergencies strike.
For more information or to find out how you can support the organisation go to our website www.southwaterresponders.org
February 2022 - Thank you Simon
All our Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) in Southwater Parish need to be serviced on a regular basis. This involves a visual inspection, rigorous testing and the replacement of consumables such as pads and batteries. As we have 13 PADs in the network it takes the best part of a day to visit them all. Simon Francis, one of our First Responder volunteers has taken responsibility for this and does so in his spare time.
Simon is a director of the Horsham based company Trimbio, which supplies and services medical equipment. This means he has an excellent working knowledge of PADs and has been able to arrange for the loan of parts at short notice while we await replacements. He has also helped with the recycling of older PADs which provides a small return on the original investment, and is environmentally friendly too!
We would like to share our appreciation for the important work that Simon does on our behalf ensuring all our PADs are in perfect working order 24/7. Thank you to Simon and all of the CFR volunteers.
#secamb #southwatercfr #itswhatwedo
February 2022 - Awareness Training Salisbury Road
Following the installation of a Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) in Salisbury Road (Tower Hill), the Southwater Community First Responders held familiarisation sessions for over 40 residents on Saturday. Nick Dowling ran the sessions and although a very cold morning the training was well attended. We would like to thank everyone who came along.
The defibrillator was donated by Tony Bull, a resident and trustee of the Southwater Community Responders, in memory of his wife Susan, who sadly passed away in October last year.
January 2022 - Team Meeting
We held our January Team Meeting on Thursday 27th january. It was great to meet everyone and catch up. Nick Dowling facilitated a Basic Life Support Assessment which we passed with flying colours
