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About Us:

Hello! We’re  Leeds Student Community First Responders (LSCFR) and we work with the Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS), responding to 999 emergencies across Greater Leeds. We’ve grown from a handful of medical students to a large society with over 30 active responders from all different backgrounds. You don’t need to have any prior knowledge - we’ll teach you everything you need to know through our teaching sessions as well as the training at YAS where you will become a certified first responder!

Becoming a CFR is a really rewarding experience. You could be providing vital reassurance to someone with chest pain, giving oxygen to people with difficulty breathing or delivering CPR in a cardiac arrest. No call is the same as the last. You can respond any time of the day or night, making us one of the most flexible volunteering opportunities out there. We arrange shifts, go on call, work with dispatch to head to 999 calls when an ambulance is unavailable or further out than us. This allows us to help people who need it most- there is no greater feeling! :)

The Social Side:

We’re out on the road as pairs, giving you the chance to make new friends from across the university. We will offer social events along with our buddy scheme to help you get settled into the role and to find people to go on call with and we’re super proud of our social calendar - we hope to run pub quizzes, a residential trip away with Mountain Rescue, series of teaching sessions, nights out, games nights, and our annual Christmas Dinner. These events cater to drinkers and non-drinkers alike! 

The Academic Side:

Our teaching events will focus on aspects of CFR care such as taking vital signs, life-saving interventions such as CPR, history taking and handover. These will serve as practice sessions for our existing CFRs, insight for people curious into first aid and also will be super useful for healthcare students as it offers NHS level training to help you prep for OSCEs!

We also run exciting, hands-on events - previous events have included collaborations with the Police, Mountain Rescue, and Emergency Medicine Doctors and our committee have received extra training in hopes of running conferences and mass casualty experience days!. These events will offer insight into careers and opportunities you may not yet be aware of! 

Memberships:

Please be aware student memberships are only for individuals who have been successful in applying to be a CFR and have been trained by YAS (Yorkshire Ambulance Service). If you just wish to attend events such as our socials, give it a go or education events then please select a GIVE IT A GO membership.

GIVE IT A GO memberships are now available! These are for people interested in attending our events (socials/teaching sessions) who are not yet CFRs whether you wish to progress to being one or not :)

A membership is needed to attend our events and our GIAG!

Socials:

Got any questions? Send us a message on our instagram, leedsstudentcfr (leeds students community first responders)- monitored by our social secretary or drop us an email at communityfirstresponders@luu.group - monitored by our secretary.

We will be at welcome fair in freshers week to answer questions in person, you can come get a taster in our GIAG shortly after at the start of the academic year, then applications will open to apply to become a CFR and help save lives!! Once we get our first CFRs trained, we will launch into our social events and academic events to cater to CFRs, healthcare students, people interested in first aid and people who just want to get out socialising! :)

FAQ:

How are CFRs different from St John's Ambulance?

St John's Ambulance provide medical cover at events. CFRs on the other hand get to respond to real 999 emergencies anywhere in Leeds and the surrounding area. You become an ambulance but without the stretcher or the blue lights. You get to meet the real people of Leeds from a vast range of backgrounds - from the elderly who will often offer you a cup of tea to the families living in the suburbs. You could be sitting at home on call watching Clarkson's Farm waiting for a call to come in, and 10 minutes later doing CPR in the local Tesco. Experienced CFRs may even get the opportunity to do a couple shifts with ambulance crews riding in ambulances on blue lights to calls across West Yorkshire.

What skills do I need to have?

You need to be calm and collected even in stressful situations. It is also useful if you are chatty and not afraid to talk to strangers, thankfully most of the calls we go to are not life and death situations, and it's always useful if you can make small talk with the patient whilst you wait for the ambulance to arrive. An interest in medicine may be useful, but is absolutely not required. We are also very eager to add more drivers to our community so if you have a car in Leeds- please apply! 

What is the commitment?

As student CFRs we must commit ten hours a month of volunteering. This is the time you are on call, NOT the time spent at calls. This can be done in a one day shift as our treasurer and social sec love to do or you can spread it out, doing 5 hours every other week or just the odd couple of hours here and there. These hours MUST be hit when an active CFR however you can go inactive outside of term time if going home or during exam season if you can't find the time to get out on shift.