Raising my head above the popular parapet, there's nothing wrong with using volunteers/responders to 'stop the clock'. What's wrong is the clock! 8mins is a meaningless government set target and to achieve it an ambulance service has to deliver ANYONE with a defibrillator and the training to use it to a casualty inside that window.
From a medical point of view - you'll start to develop irreparable brain damage within 3mins but the government realises they're setting themselves up for failure if they set that as the target. What we are left with is an arbitrary target which can be met in London but nowhere else! Personally, if I have a cardiac arrest one day I'd desperately love Butcher Bill to shut his shop and come and do CPR and defib within 8 minutes while we wait for transport to hospital with my paramedic colleagues. Contrary to Daily Fail opinion, they are well trained, well supported and an invaluable part of any rural Ambulance service.
As for centralising services....does anyone know where the very sickest major trauma patients go when they are too unstable to last the trip to the Major Trauma Centre? Yes, you got it, they go to the nearest Trauma Unit hospital to be stabilised. Here you will find a hard-working team of clinicians who are trying to make the best of that while all the services and expertise we need is being stripped out around us
