Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service
Encyclopedia
Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service is a registered charity
staffed by volunteers providing prehospital care services across Lincolnshire
, UK. The Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service (or LIVES) operates alongside the East Midlands Ambulance Service
to provide high quality clinical and critical care skills as well as immediate medical responses in the form of first responders. LIVES operates under the national prehospital care co-ordinating body BASICS (British Association for Immediate Care
).
During the 1970s two doctors in Lincolnshire, Dr Michael Cooper from Nettleham and Dr Richard Harper-Smith of Tetford, devised the LIVES concept. An open meeting was convened, attended by over one hundred local doctors enthused by the idea of the service. As a result of this meeting, LIVES was born. The Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service. The original objective of the scheme was to provide expert emergency medical assistance for road traffic accident victims and other trauma cases throughout Lincolnshire. Originally LIVES had no funds and joining doctors bought their own equipment. In the following years several companies and institutes gave money which was spent on establishing a radio-communication system to improve the efficiency of callout. A mixture of telephones and two way radios were introduced with transmitters at Nettleham and Fulletby.
In 1974 Dr Mike Cooper became ill and resigned from the Chair whilst Dr Richard Harper-Smith took over, the position confirmed at the 1975 AGM. Dr Mike Cooper died in 1976.
In 1980 further transmitters were installed at Barton, Boston and Sleaford employing 3 part time operators. Communications remained limited and additional transmitters were provided by charitable contribution to a total of seven. Each transmitter was then connected to the control room at the County Hospital by landline. These alone cost £10,000 a year in rental.
During the 1990s Lincoln County Hospital declared that as a result of a modernisation programme it was not possible to continue letting LIVES have a room at the Accident and Emergency Department. The radio system became obsolete and expensive to run.
An invitation from the Lincolnshire Ambulance Service to base LIVES Control within the ambulance control centre was accepted and LIVES control was moved to the ambulance headquarters at Bracebridge Heath. This move greatly improved the efficiency of LIVES callout and still operates to this day as part of the computerised automatic dispatch (CAD) system.
In 1999 the Chief Executive of the Ambulance Trust invited LIVES to establish a First Responder Service for suspected heart attack victims. It was envisaged that this would enable an equality of service to be extended across the rural areas within the County. LIVES saw this as an extension of their existing service and readily agreed to participate. This then became the LIVES "First Responder Scheme".
In 2008 Dr Harper-Smith received an MBE
for his work with LIVES.
, Lincolnshire. Administration is undertaken by dedicated staff who are responsible for the 98 First Responder groups. In addition to this they provide administrative and logistical support for the 75 medical personnel involved with the charity.
Clinical director Dr Yvonne Owen heads the management team.
LIVES responders attend approximately 1,000 incidents a month, totalling in the region of 12,000 incidents per annum. LIVES medical staff attend on average 100 of the most serious incidents each month.
LIVES is registered with the Care Quality Commission.
LIVES doctor volunteers are tasked to respond to the most serious of incidents throughout the county. LIVES doctors bring specific critical care skills to the prehospital environment, enhancing current roadside care. LIVES doctors employ specialist airway management as well as surgical skills and are able to utilise specialist drugs and resuscitation techniques. LIVES doctors come from a variety of backgrounds but are typically from general practice or specialise in critical care areas. Current LIVES doctors hold, whilst new recruits are encouraged to work towards, the coveted Diploma in Immediate Medical Care (Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
).
Registered nurses and paramedics
LIVES nurses form an integral and valued part of the LIVES prehospital response. LIVES nurses are recognised for their ability to provide additional skills and expertise in the delivery of prehospital care. As well as holding specialist critical care and advanced life support skills in their own environments, LIVES nurses are expected to hold the Prehospital Emergency Care Certificate (Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh).
LIVES paramedics are drawn from operational front line positions throughout the ambulance service and volunteer in their spare time. They are typically activated to provide a high quality response within their home locality to incidents specifically requiring paramedic skills.
First responders
Form a large proportion of the immediate emergency response. First reponders undertake accredited courses at the LIVES headquarters before going operational. Once operational and on duty they can be activated to incidents by ambulance control within a defined area, providing valuable emergency cover in otherwise hard to reach areas. There are currently three levels of trained first responder:
The NHS Improvement network recognises the significant contributions made by LIVES volunteers:
A 2011 independent review by the University of Sheffield speaks highly of the service:
A number of LIVES personnel hold instructor status with BASICS and teach on nationally recognised and accredited BASICS courses.
LIVES is fortunate to have amongst its volunteers the BASICS educational facilitator as well as members of the BASICS educational board.
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
staffed by volunteers providing prehospital care services across Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, UK. The Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service (or LIVES) operates alongside the East Midlands Ambulance Service
East Midlands Ambulance Service
East Midlands Ambulance Service National Health Service Trust provides emergency 999, urgent care and patient transport services for the 4.8 million people within the East Midlands region of the UK - covering Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Lincolnshire , Northamptonshire and...
to provide high quality clinical and critical care skills as well as immediate medical responses in the form of first responders. LIVES operates under the national prehospital care co-ordinating body BASICS (British Association for Immediate Care
British Association for Immediate Care
The British Association for Immediate Care is a registered charity which aims to encourage and aid the formation and extension of Immediate Care Schemes and strengthen and develop co-operation between schemes providing Immediate Care and the statutory emergency services...
).
History
LIVES is one of the oldest prehospital care schemes in the United Kingdom.During the 1970s two doctors in Lincolnshire, Dr Michael Cooper from Nettleham and Dr Richard Harper-Smith of Tetford, devised the LIVES concept. An open meeting was convened, attended by over one hundred local doctors enthused by the idea of the service. As a result of this meeting, LIVES was born. The Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service. The original objective of the scheme was to provide expert emergency medical assistance for road traffic accident victims and other trauma cases throughout Lincolnshire. Originally LIVES had no funds and joining doctors bought their own equipment. In the following years several companies and institutes gave money which was spent on establishing a radio-communication system to improve the efficiency of callout. A mixture of telephones and two way radios were introduced with transmitters at Nettleham and Fulletby.
In 1974 Dr Mike Cooper became ill and resigned from the Chair whilst Dr Richard Harper-Smith took over, the position confirmed at the 1975 AGM. Dr Mike Cooper died in 1976.
In 1980 further transmitters were installed at Barton, Boston and Sleaford employing 3 part time operators. Communications remained limited and additional transmitters were provided by charitable contribution to a total of seven. Each transmitter was then connected to the control room at the County Hospital by landline. These alone cost £10,000 a year in rental.
During the 1990s Lincoln County Hospital declared that as a result of a modernisation programme it was not possible to continue letting LIVES have a room at the Accident and Emergency Department. The radio system became obsolete and expensive to run.
An invitation from the Lincolnshire Ambulance Service to base LIVES Control within the ambulance control centre was accepted and LIVES control was moved to the ambulance headquarters at Bracebridge Heath. This move greatly improved the efficiency of LIVES callout and still operates to this day as part of the computerised automatic dispatch (CAD) system.
In 1999 the Chief Executive of the Ambulance Trust invited LIVES to establish a First Responder Service for suspected heart attack victims. It was envisaged that this would enable an equality of service to be extended across the rural areas within the County. LIVES saw this as an extension of their existing service and readily agreed to participate. This then became the LIVES "First Responder Scheme".
In 2008 Dr Harper-Smith received an MBE
MBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
for his work with LIVES.
Current
LIVES headquarters is situated within the War memorial centre in HorncastleHorncastle
Horncastle is a market town of some 6,090 residents in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, 22 miles east of Lincoln.-Geography:...
, Lincolnshire. Administration is undertaken by dedicated staff who are responsible for the 98 First Responder groups. In addition to this they provide administrative and logistical support for the 75 medical personnel involved with the charity.
Clinical director Dr Yvonne Owen heads the management team.
LIVES responders attend approximately 1,000 incidents a month, totalling in the region of 12,000 incidents per annum. LIVES medical staff attend on average 100 of the most serious incidents each month.
LIVES is registered with the Care Quality Commission.
Volunteers
DoctorsLIVES doctor volunteers are tasked to respond to the most serious of incidents throughout the county. LIVES doctors bring specific critical care skills to the prehospital environment, enhancing current roadside care. LIVES doctors employ specialist airway management as well as surgical skills and are able to utilise specialist drugs and resuscitation techniques. LIVES doctors come from a variety of backgrounds but are typically from general practice or specialise in critical care areas. Current LIVES doctors hold, whilst new recruits are encouraged to work towards, the coveted Diploma in Immediate Medical Care (Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh is an organisation dedicated to the pursuit of excellence and advancement in surgical practice, through its interest in education, training and examinations, its liaison with external medical bodies and representation of the modern surgical workforce...
).
Registered nurses and paramedics
LIVES nurses form an integral and valued part of the LIVES prehospital response. LIVES nurses are recognised for their ability to provide additional skills and expertise in the delivery of prehospital care. As well as holding specialist critical care and advanced life support skills in their own environments, LIVES nurses are expected to hold the Prehospital Emergency Care Certificate (Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh).
LIVES paramedics are drawn from operational front line positions throughout the ambulance service and volunteer in their spare time. They are typically activated to provide a high quality response within their home locality to incidents specifically requiring paramedic skills.
First responders
Form a large proportion of the immediate emergency response. First reponders undertake accredited courses at the LIVES headquarters before going operational. Once operational and on duty they can be activated to incidents by ambulance control within a defined area, providing valuable emergency cover in otherwise hard to reach areas. There are currently three levels of trained first responder:
- Basic Utilising basic life support skills with airway adjuncts, oxygen use and fully automated defibrillators.
- Intermediate Further training in paediatric care. Activated to a wider scope of incidents.
- Enhanced Specific on scene safety training. Use of entonox and other medications for immediate care.
Operational impact
The 2004 ScHARR report undertaken by the University of Sheffield Medical Research Unit investigated the utility of the service:
- LIVES activity is increasing over time as the number of schemes also continues to increase. Up to 25% of ambulance service category A calls now receive a LIVES response and for 60% of these calls the LIVES response arrives first on scene
- LIVES improves response time performance by 35% in the rural areas where they provide a service thus contributing to the provision of an equitable service for life-threatening category A calls
- The return to spontaneous circulation rate of patients in cardiac arrest is 20% for cases attended by LIVES and receiving defibrillation. Response times to these cases are considerably shorter than the first ambulance service response
- Users of the ambulance service who receive a LIVES response show a high level of satisfaction with the LIVES service
The NHS Improvement network recognises the significant contributions made by LIVES volunteers:
"This has been an innovative way of using locally available resources, at minimal cost, to improve patient outcomes for life threatening conditions in an environment where continued annual increases in demand for emergency ambulance services produce further pressure on already stretched resources"
A 2011 independent review by the University of Sheffield speaks highly of the service:
LIVES training
LIVES training is the external training arm of the LIVES charity. LIVES training offers a number of prehospital care courses. LIVES training is both HSE Approved (58/03) and IHCD (5231) registered.Educational Commitment
LIVES personnel have a strong educational commitment and ethos. In addition to regular meetings and sessions, LIVES personnel are involved in multiple educational activities, including the promotion of prehospital care amongst medical and nursing students. LIVES doctors and nurses have delivered lectures and presentations to local universities and at national conferences.A number of LIVES personnel hold instructor status with BASICS and teach on nationally recognised and accredited BASICS courses.
LIVES is fortunate to have amongst its volunteers the BASICS educational facilitator as well as members of the BASICS educational board.