Mission

Pre-hospital critical care is not available through the NHS. Road ambulances do not always carry doctors and paramedics cannot administer some medications, give emergency anaesthetics, sedate people or perform emergency surgery. Our local air ambulance charity - who does provide critical care – does not operate for six hours at night. So what happens when somebody is seriously ill but other services cannot help? Bravo Medics steps in. Our volunteers are on call to drive on blue lights to emergencies at any time, often in family time or after a long hospital shift. Our specially trained and equipped volunteer doctors attend the scene of medical emergencies and save lives across Bristol; North Somerset; South Gloucestershire; Bath and North East Somerset; parts of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire; plus other areas such as South Wales or North Devon when required.

Category

Health

Additional Information

• Few people realise that NHS ambulances do not carry doctors. Most - but not all - have a paramedic. They deliver fantastic care but are not trained to give anaesthetics or perform life-saving surgery. • Waiting until people arrive at hospital to get the treatment they need can have a serious effect on their survival and recovery. Ambulances transport patients to the hospital, but in the most severe cases such as a cardiac arrest, it can be too late. In these situations, South Western Ambulance Service ask for our help. 50% of medical emergencies we are called to are patients assessed by the ambulance as needing an immediate response. • Our air ambulances do not work 24 hours a day and the South Western Air Ambulance cannot fly after 01:00; this leaves peak periods with no critical care service available. • Some interventions are only available within hospital or through Bravo Medics. NHS paramedics are highly trained to provide treatment, discharge people on scene or transfer them to hospital, but they do not perform specialist procedures such as administering an emergency general anaesthetic or sedation. • Ambulances cannot carry specialist medications including those used for seizures, eclampsia (a condition in late pregnancy), asthma, severe sepsis, arrhythmia (life threatening electrical activity in the heart) or cardiac arrest. • In 2021 the South West Ambulance Service received a 21% increase in 999 calls per day. The Ambulance Service has declared a critical incident and without Bravo Medics, people may not be reached in time. The target for ambulances to reach immediately life-threatening emergencies (Category 1 calls) within eight minutes, has not been achieved since 2014. • This has only been exasperated by COVID-19 - the average Category 1 response time for England is the longest since 2018. Without extra support, people face long waiting times for an ambulance putting their lives at risk. • More than 30,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests occur every year in the UK but only 1 in 10 people survive. Each doctor attends around 30 cardiac arrests a year and we only expect incidences to increase.