HM Coastguard supports the Scottish Ambulance Service with mutual aid work

Her Majesty's Coastguard has completed a programme of mutual aid support work, helping the Scottish Ambulance Service with trained drivers, as an extension to work done in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Between Wednesday 21st October and Saturday 24th October, coastguard drivers assisted the ambulance service to crew their vehicles as part of support to the Scottish Ambulance Service's resilience plans. These double-crewed ambulances had one Coastguard (driving) and One Ambulance Service clinician to maintain essential cover in the Isle of Harris, Western Isles in Scotland.

This valuable work, which included helping the ambulance service with both planned patient transfers and emergency calls follows the extensive mutual aid training which was completed by HM Coastguard and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service personnel over the course of this past summer (July and August), to support the Scottish Ambulance Service.

From safe moving and handling techniques of patients and equipment transfers to infection control and Personal Protective Equipment guidance, coastguard staff learnt a whole new range of new skills. On top of that, safety-focused ambulance driving lessons were also carried out.

Murdo Macaulay, HM Coastguard Operations Area Commander for the Western Isles, Skye and Lochaber, said: “We are proud to have supported and assisted a fellow category one emergency service partner, the Scottish Ambulance Service, through an important period of continued work to build on preparations made during the coronavirus crisis.

“It is really imperative that we come together and work to support our local communities during these challenging times.”


He added: “Our Coastguard Rescue Officers who have been involved in the mutual aid support with the Scottish Ambulance Service have benefitted hugely from new training experiences and have relished the opportunity to build their skills bases while benefitting their communities.”

Popular posts from this blog

Label your kit at the coast

Image
Kayaks. Canoes. Paddleboards. What do they all have in common? They’re quite often found on the coastline or drifting out to sea. And if we don’t know who they belong to, we can spend time searching for an owner when they’re home safe and sound. So please help us to help you. Label your kit so that if you do get separated from it, and it turns up somewhere, we can get hold of you. In recent weeks, our Coastguard Rescue Teams have found numerous items such as kayaks and canoes drifting out at sea or abandoned near the shoreline. Unfortunately, some of the items we have found have not had their owners’ contact details written on them nor been reported as missing to the Coastguard. As a result, it makes it difficult for us to find out who it belongs to and also means we can never be completely sure if someone is safe or in the worst case, in trouble at sea. This can place a huge strain on our resources especially during the busy summer period when we have to call upon our Coastgua
Read more

A short history of HM Coastguard

Image
Today HM Coastguard is a world leader in maritime search and rescue. Looking back almost 200 years, the goods, which now travel by road, were carried by hundreds of small ships. Year in year out dozens of ships and hundreds of lives were lost within sight of the coast. Public shock and dismay at the tragedies drove forward the creation of national life saving organisations. Though it’s beginnings lie in those decades HM Coastguard originated not to meet the dangers of the seas but to combat a threat to the country’s economy and security – smuggling. As soon as medieval taxes were charged on imports and exports, people began smuggling. By 1743 th e estimate was that half the tea drunk in Britain was illegally imported and shows that smuggling was highly profitable. Smugglers have often been romanticised but the reality was brutal. Local people lived in fear, with violent reprisals on informers and the murder of revenue officers, while corruption enabled smugglers to evade harsh p
Read more

BOSCASTLE FLOODS: TEN YEARS ON

Image
Boscastle Flooding 16 th August 2004 The storms of Monday 16 August 2004 saw three weeks worth of rain fall in one day. The resulting water began to be funnelled down the valleys surrounding Boscastle and soon the steep roads became rivers. By the time that the water reached the picturesque village, it had picked up enough momentum to become a raging torrent, sweeping into buildings, washing cars away and felling huge trees. Graham King runs the Witches Museum in Boscastle and was also the station officer for the Boscastle Coastguard Rescue Team at the time of the floods: “ My museum is situated next to the harbour near the river ,” says Graham “ and I can see the coastguard equipment store from there. Initially I was concerned that the vehicle and equipment were going to become stranded but I soon began to realise how quickly the situation was deteriorating and called Falmouth Coastguard ” From that point on the villagers and tourists stranded in flood waters were he
Read more