Thank you to Clive and Tim from First Response (https://www.firstresponse.org.uk/) for a very informative resuscitation training session at the Church Centre on Tuesday 19th March.
Thanks to everyone who turned up to support this annual event, we hope you found it useful. There was excellent attendance from the surrounding villages and Nether Stowey. The Audience was taken through scenarios involving anaphylaxis and shown the difference between EpiPen’s and Emerade auto injectors hopefully giving people the confidence to act in an emergency situation. The training also discussed choking and resuscitation.
Some key points to remember were:
In situations where someone feels faint was to actually get them safely onto the floor rather than on a bed or a chair as they still could fall from these locations and injure themselves.
Make sure your house name and number is well lit and obvious in case you ever need to call 999, so that they can find you as easily and quickly as possible. If you do need to call an ambulance make sure you put the lights on your house, open gates and doors so that the emergency crew can access you as quickly as possible.
The simple acronyms to consider in an emergency are:
Danger: is there any danger nearby that might harm you as well as the patient?
Response: is the patient responsive to you voice, or pain?
Airway: is the airway clear?
Breathing: is the patient breathing?
Circulation: Here are there signs of circulation
If an adult is unresponsive and not breathing:
- Call 999 as soon as possible
- If there is another person in attendance send them for the defibrillator located on the outside of the surgery
- Start chest compressions immediately until a ‘defib’, or emergency responders arrive
If a child is unresponsive and not breathing
- Shout for help
- Open airway
- 5 rescue breaths
- No sign of life
- 15 chest compressions
- 2 rescue breaths 15 chest compressions
Continue until emergency responders arrive. For Chest Compressions always use your dominant hand. First find the centre of the chest (use fingers under the arms and where meet in middle of the chest, use the heal of hand in chest hard enough to expel air and push blood around the body).All mobile phone networks will work for ‘999’ calls. For more information have a look at the First Response Website which has lots of helpful tips and advice on first aid and resuscitation https://www.firstresponse.org.uk/
Also we have a change of staff on reception, we would like to wish Kate ‘Good Luck’ in her new role at Warwick House Medical Centre Taunton and hope all her experiences and training here in our small rural practice have helped. She will be greatly missed by all the team here and the Patients; she has been a great support to me in helping to set up our social prescribing groups and keeping the medical centre a key part of our community.
Helen Stacey, Practice Manager
