Community First Responders' Role in the Current and Future Rural Health and Care Workforce

Completed

• Conditions: Emergency Medical Services
• Interventions: Other: attendance by community first responders for medical emergencies

• Registration Number: NCT04279262
• Lead Sponsor: University of Lincoln

Brief Summary

Community First Responders (CFRs) are trained members of the public, lay people or off-duty healthcare staff who volunteer to provide first aid. CFRs help ambulance services to provide care for people having health emergencies, from falls to road accidents to heart attacks, at home or in public places. CFRs are particularly important in rural areas where it is more difficult to provide or access emergency care, and where they are an important part of the care workforce. CFRs are broadly perceived to be positive, however evidence is needed about how they contribute to rural health services, which patients/conditions they attend, what care they provide, how effective they are and at what cost, how they are perceived by patients and other health workers, and how they could be developed to improve care for rural communities.

The investigators aim to develop recommendations for rural CFRs, by exploring their contribution to rural care, evaluating their value for money, understanding experiences and views of patients, CFRs and other healthcare staff, and exploring the potential for CFRs to provide new services.

Detailed Description

The project will involve the following steps:

1. Analyse records from six ambulance services to see: how many people CFRs attended; the proportion of ambulance calls attended; age, sex and conditions of people attended; how quickly CFRs attended and what happened to the patient(s) when the ambulance arrived.

2. Evaluate benefits and costs of CFRs attending rural emergencies.

3. Interview patients/relatives, ambulance staff, GPs, funders, CFRs and CFR leads to obtain views on rural CFR current and potential future roles. Interviews will also explore with CFRs and CFR leads, challenges and solutions to recruiting, training, retaining rural CFRs and ensuring safe, high quality care.

4. Combine this knowledge (gained in steps1-3 above) to develop recommendations for change; who will be involved and how services should change to solve the most pressing problems for the rural communities served.

5. Present recommendations to a workshop of experts and public to agree priorities for future development.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2020-01-23
• Study First Submitted QC: 2020-02-19
• Study First Posted: 2020-02-21
• Study Start: 2020-06-01
• Status Verified: 2022-05
• Primary Completion: 2022-05-01
• Study Completion: 2022-12-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-12-10
• Last Update Posted: 2025-03-25

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 83995

Inclusion Criteria

• Adults capable of giving informed consent. The investigators will recruit a maximum variation sample of patients (according to age, sex, condition, and ethnicity), ambulance staff (sex, experience, ethnicity and role), CFR (sex, ethnicity, length of experience, skill level) and CFR scheme leads (independent charity and ambulance trust overseen schemes).

Exclusion Criteria

• The investigators will exclude children and adults who are unable to give informed consent from this study.

London Ambulance Service NHS Trust is not included as it is mainly urban; East of England Ambulance Service and North East Ambulance Service are not included because of lack of electronic data.

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Anonymised records from 6 ambulance services	attendance by community first responders for medical emergencies	The total available sample for analysis for this cohort is estimated to be at least 50,000 incidents across 6 ambulance trusts. The investigators will describe the epidemiology of CFR provision to rural health areas using an anonymised dataset.
Interviews with patients (and/or relatives)	attendance by community first responders for medical emergencies	The investigators will interview about 15-20 patients (and/or relatives) who have been attended by CFRs.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
How quickly cases are dealt with	we will evaluate all emergency attendances during one year	how quickly they attend
Treatments given and transfer to hospital	we will evaluate all emergency attendances during one year	we will evaluate the treatments provided and the number of cases transferred to hospital
Locations	we will evaluate all emergency attendances during one year	We will describe rurality and location (eg. at home or elsewhere) where CFRs give treatment.
Number of ambulance calls that CFRs attend in one year	we will evaluate all emergency attendances during one year	We will establish how many people CFRs attended and work out the proportion of ambulance calls attended.
The type of cases treated by CFRs	we will evaluate all emergency attendances during one year	characteristics of people (age, sex, condition) attended

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Perceptions of CFR schemes	participants will have been involved in a CFR attendance in the previous 6 months	We will interview different stakeholders (patients, CFRs, GPs, ambulance staff, CFR leads)

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Community and Health Research Unit, University of Lincoln; 🇬🇧 Lincoln, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom