By Sophie Swain Stand Up For Southport
Over the past six years, the Southport Community First Response (CFR) Team has provided the town with volunteer emergency response.
The group is formed of three members who give up their time to handle incidents from cardiac arrest to severe bleeds.
It was set up by Jonathan Cunningham in February 2018 who initially formed the group with his son, Edward who has since became a paramedic with the North West Ambulance Service.
With a background in the military, Jonathan admitted he didn’t know what being a community first responder entailed.
He said: “There’s a wonderful relationship between North West Ambulance Service and the local based Southport CFR team.
“There is no suggestion that CFRs wish to be paramedics, only to assist their paramedic colleagues in their role.
“It is a deeply rewarding experience, allowing trained volunteers to respond to the community whenever they wish to sign on.”
Now the team leader, Jonathan works with Matt and Freya, their most recent edition who is 23 years old.
The group has raised over £5,000 to fund additional equipment, as much of their resources are not funded by the NHS.
Jonathan said: “CFR’s are considered frontline volunteers that we are unsupported and enter into medical situations within the community on our own.
“You can imagine the scenarios that we’ve faced over the years ranging from with everything from severe trauma within the home, dealing with the elderly and frail, following on behind the police on a forced entry welfare check to find the occupant sadly deceased over many weeks or months, or indeed sadly entering home to find not the occupant has taken their own life.”
In addition to dealing with emergency situations in the community, the team has also trained over 1,500 primary school children and youth groups.
The free training is delivered by Jonathan which sees children learn practical first aid. He has also trained 200 teachers and around 150 businesses, focusing on the use of emergency bleed kids.
In 2025, Jonathan and the team plan to develop the group even further, by recruiting more volunteers.
“The intention over the next year is to grow the Southport community first response team, we have wonderful support from the local NHS North West Ambulance staff based in Estuary Point.
“We are based at Birkdale Park Nursing Home where we conduct additional training and discuss recent deployments.
“If any of the readers are interested in becoming a community first responder then it would be a delight to have a chat.”
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