While training to be a community First Responder or Community Trainer with us, there are three key phases of training that are observed:
Internal Recruit Training
Prior to your formal training with the ambulance service, we provide our own in-house training programme. This includes anatomy and physiology lessons, practice sessions for CPR and use of a defibrillator, body systems analysis and a session of process and procedure training related to your scope as a community first responder. The idea behind this training is that it will make the formal training process with EMAS a much smoother and easier process and allow you to focus on excelling on your course with a view to getting you out on the road straight away.
Formal Training
The formal ambulance service course is usually run over 3 or 4 days and consists of a number of topics including:
- Introduction to the ambulance service
- Policy and process
- Anatomy and physiology
- Health & safety
- Safeguarding
- Available support
- Medical questioning
- Drugs administration
- CPR and safe use of an AED
- Scenario based assessments
After this course, you are examined on your BLS (Basic Life Support – use of CPR and a defibrillator) and on drugs administrations (primarily safe oxygen administration) and then you are qualified and ready to go.
At this point, you are allowed out on the road, shadowing one of our experienced responders. Over time, you will develop confidence and will be out on your own (if you want to!). From then on, we offer continuous CPD events and training sessions to keep your skills sharp.
Ongoing CPD Training
Within our scheme, we have a number of training and CPD (Continuous Professional Development) sessions available. These include:
- Monthly training sessions – both online and in-person to practice theory
- EMAS Ambulance CPD sessions covering a wide range of topics related to being a CFR
- “Learning From” events where jobs that haven’t gone to plan are discussed and reflected upon for future development
- One-on-one personal training sessions if required to help with anything you are struggling with or want extra support with
Our monthly training sessions are our primary method of training and give all of our responders the change to regularly meets, swap stories and catch up, while also keeping their training up to date. See more about our monthly internal training sessions here.