Volunteers 'no substitute for GP'

Published on Tuesday 21 July 2009 21:59

THERE is no evidence to support the use of volunteers to provide emergency first aid in rural communities without out-of-hours medical cover, researchers claim.

Allyson Pollock and Megan Arthur, of Edinburgh University, said local communities might be given wrongful expectations of what the "first responders" could deliver.

In particular, they said first responders could not be a substitute for out-of-hours services in Kinloch Rannoch in Perthshire, where local campaigners have criticised the lack of a local out-of-hours GP.

NHS Tayside insisted the first responders were not a replacement for out-of-hours care, but were an additional support to the community.

First responders are trained in basic emergency first aid and dealing with cases such as someone having a heart attack. They are deployed by the ambulance service at the same time as an ambulance to get someone to the scene as fast as possible.

Prof Pollock, of the university's Centre for International Public Health Policy, said in Tayside the first responders were being used as a top-up for ambulance services and as a substitute for a local out-of-hours GP.

"We have got a policy that's got no evidence base," Prof Pollock added.