Arnside & Milnthorpe Community First Responders (CFRs) 

A group of volunteers for the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) who can provide immediate care for people suffering life-threatening conditions in the local area, before an ambulance arrives. The local area they support has recently been expanded after merging CFR groups from Arnside and Storth, and Heversham and Milnthorpe.

Community First Responders (CFRs) are an integral part of patient care and undertake monthly training and an annual assessment. They carry a defibrillator and oxygen and are trained in basic life-saving skills – including cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and can also carry out basic checks including blood pressure, temperature, and blood sugar levels, as well as checking patients’ pulse and oxygen saturation levels.

Volunteers make themselves available to respond and are activated by NWAS control via an app on their mobile phones, enabling them to provide early interventions in those crucial first minutes of an emergency – in many cases saving lives and making a difference to the patients that they attend.

They can attend to a number of serious conditions, including cardiac arrests, breathing difficulties, heart attacks, strokes, seizures and fitting, and diabetic emergencies.

Please Note: They can only respond to 999 calls and cannot be contacted directly for help by the community, so for all Emergencies, please call 999.

CFRs operate across the whole of the North West of England – in both rural and urban areas, and are a crucial part of the Chain of Survival.