Out and about (again)

Autumn is a very busy time for us in terms of events.  September saw our annual trip to the Emergency Services Show and we visited Skills North East. During October we took part in the now global, 'Restart a Heart Day' and exhibited at the Schools NorthEast Summit. In a couple of weeks we will be off to the North East Expo. We enjoy engaging and meeting people, finding out what is going on in the region and beyond.  Here is what we learnt...

...essentially, everyone is very busy!

World Restart a Heart Day

This year, Restart a Heart went global! Restart a Heart is a designated yearly day of action with the aim to teach vital life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills to as many people as possible.  Last year the event resulted in an incredible 195,000 young people trained in life saving CPR, this year, the aim was to exceed the 200,000 mark in the UK alone.

Over a quarter (27%) of adults living in the North East of England wouldn’t perform CPR if they saw someone suffer a cardiac arrest, according to worrying new figures released to mark Restart a Heart Day.  We back the campaign by visiting schools across the region and supporting teachers to train their school pupils in how to administer CPR. This year we supported more schools and colleagues than in the past and we hope to continue that trend next year.  For more information or to find out how to get involved visit our Trust website

Emergency Services Show

Billed as, "One of the key events for emergency services professionals, indeed anyone involved in emergency planning, response or recovery, both in the UK and abroad." the Emergency Services Show offers all emergency workers a great place to network and learn.  We attend, in the main, to talk about our Immediate Emergency Care (IEC) trauma course. The IEC course is designed to recognise life threatening injuries and administer treatment. It equips learners with a higher level of medical skill meaning they can medically assist a patient until paramedics arrive and continue to assist the paramedic thereafter. It provides fire and rescue personnel, non-operational managers and community responders with a recognised qualification. It also benefits the MOD, police forces, the prison service and private companies supplying rescue personnel, by providing the skills, knowledge and understanding to deal with medical emergencies until the ambulance service arrives.  At the show we enjoyed bumping into a number of customers and meeting a few that might become customers.  We work in an increasingly challenging environment and find that collaboration is key, more and more exhibitors (emergency services) at the show were looking to work together to achieve better outcomes.

We also promoted a couple of other courses that we have not been very vocal about - but are rather good at delivering:

• Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement
• Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice

As with the IEC training, we can deliver these nationally.

SCHOOLS NorthEast Summit

We are proud supporters of SCHOOLS NorthEast and as such we have attended several of their events, the latest being their Summit at St James' Park earlier this month.

SCHOOLS NorthEast was set up for schools by schools in 2007. Their aim was to create a unique culture of collaboration and mutual support amongst North East schools to ensure the best possible outcomes for all of our region’s young people. Ten years on, SCHOOLS NorthEast is stronger than ever. The event was attended by 500+ delegates, a great number of whom held senior positions in schools in the region.  We were interested in draft proposals being tabled nationally to introduce first aid training for students in school (secondary) and the possibility of the provision of AEDs becoming compulsory in educational venues.  We also wanted to promote our courses; we work with a number of schools, universities and colleges already and would like to work with more.  All the feedback was positive from the team who attended on the day - they met some truly inspirational people, several of whom we hope to work with soon.

Skills North East

Skills North East is an interactive and inspiring two-day event for 14 to 19 year olds and the people that may help and influence their future job and career choices. It provides young people with the opportunity to try a wide range of jobs and training opportunities and to gain inspiration for their future careers. Whether they choose to go to university/college, embark on an apprenticeship or go directly into work, choosing the right career for them is the first step to determining what further learning they need to get there. 

We attended to talk about opportunities within the North East Ambulance Service and to promote our courses for schools and colleagues, these include first aid at work, mental health first aid and AED familiarisation.