West Yorkshire armed police join paramedics in life-saving response scheme

Since the launch in September, West Yorkshire Firearms Officers could now arrive to your front doors first if they are closer to an incident.

It aims to give patients who are in cardiac and respiratory arrest the best chance of survival. So far, they have responded 40 times and helped save 5 people.

Armed forces patrol around West Yorkshire could get to those who need it in those crucial minutes who need urgent medical care, while the ambulance is on its way.

Emergency services will aims to dispatch both teams at the same time to the location, but it’s being stressed that the firearm units will not over take Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

All armed response units in West Yorkshire have already been given the training for life saving emergencies and issued with defibrillators as part of their standard kit.

Increasing demand

Paul Stevens, Head of Community Resilience for YAS, said: “CPR and defibrillation are undoubtedly the most important steps in the chain of survival and are time critical. We have a responsibility to ensure we explore every available option to improve clinical outcomes for our patients and we are delighted to be working in partnership with West Yorkshire Police on this scheme which has already had a positive impact on patient care."

“The demand placed upon blue light emergency services increases every year and our approaches to providing the best response and best patient outcomes available are continually evolving. This will lead to even more lives being saved."

However, armed units will only respond as long as they are not on a firearms related call or a police incident.

Superintendent Mark McManus says there is often a big misconception about the role of armed officers: "These are exceptionally well-trained individuals who, as well as being specially trained firearms experts, first and foremost are police officers whose primary instinct and duty will always be to help people."

“As part of their regular and intensive training, firearms officers receive ‘tactical medical training’ in order to offer emergency care in the varied and potentially unique situations they may find themselves attending."

“Our support of YAS is in addition to the standard response of the ambulance service, and is all around the timeliest intervention so more lives can be saved. This isn’t us taking on ambulance calls; this is about using the exceptional training our teams have to make a real difference when they are not attending other emergency police calls. The reality is this may only be a couple of calls a week, but if in doing so they can save lives, it’s undoubtedly a positive thing."

“This new joined up approach is just another example of how we continue to work closely with our blue light partners to give the best possible service to our communities."

Those behind the plans have told Radio Aire they hope to roll out a similar partnership with other police forces across Yorkshire