There are three types of responder

• Service Responders. These are members of the Ambulance Trust that are off-duty but willing to provide on-call backup
• Co-Responders. These are members of the other emergency services - e.g. Fire and Police that, again, whilst off-duty are willing to provide backup
• Community Responders. These are volunteers from the Community that are willing to give up some of their time to provide backup. They come from all walks of life - from the Voluntary Aid organisations such as the British Red Cross and the St John Ambulance, to people with First Aid at Work skills, to ordinary folk that want to give something back to the Community. Some may have seen Community Responders at work, dealing with a family member and wish to give something back.

This Web Site covers the work and news of all three groups in Maidenhead. However, from a recruitment angle, it is fairly obviously targeted at the Community Responder as the other Responders are already part of the Emergency Services.

For more information on Community Responders in general, check out out Links page. In addition, our Webmaster is developing an entry on Squidoo to tell the world about Community Responders.

Around the UK, the groups are organised in different ways. Groups can be autonomous and self-funding, or they can be organised by the appropriate Ambulance trust. A lot of schemes were kickstarted by the National Defibrillator programme, run jointly by the Government and the British Heart Foundation which provided the initial equipment for many Groups.

A Trust's region (e.g. Berkshire) is split up into many groups (e.g. Maidenhead), with each group organising cover through a rota system. Here in Berkshire, the Responders are co-ordinated through the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust, which provides training, the equipment and ongoing support. A dedicated co-ordinator plus Trainer have been seconded to kick start the system. However, even where the initial equipment is funded, income is still required for publicity, additional equipment, protective clothing and other expenses.