A NEW group of doctors who give up their time to help save critically injured people in serious incidents has been boosted by a coronavirus fund grant.

Bravo Medics, founded by Salisbury doctor Andrew Heavyside, supports ambulance crews by providing clinical expertise for badly injured patients at the scene of an incident before they go to hospital, which could make all the difference to their survival. Dr Heavyside, a senior registrar based at the Major Trauma Centre in Southampton, launched the charity after spending a year working aboard the Great Western Air Ambulance.

“I set this up because I have always been interested in emergency care and just seeing the benefits of the treatment we provide. I’ve visited patients recovering in hospital afterwards and been able to tell them they wouldn’t necessarily have had that outcome without us being there.

“There’s not a huge percentage where we make a life-saving difference but in every almost patient we go to there’s some difference in the care they receive or the final outcome.”

The charity has already been called to 50 incidents after being launched in January by Dr Heavyside and consultant James Tooley. It has been awarded £4,300 by the Wiltshire Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response Fund, which has already raised £1.1 million and distributed £700,000 to more than 170 groups.

Dr Heavyside, who also works at Salisbury District Hospital, said: “We are really grateful to the Wiltshire Community Foundation for the grant. They have very kindly helped towards drug costs and also running costs like insurance and equipment maintenance. It has made a huge difference in helping us to get up and running.”

He said the group is called to incidents either by the Wiltshire Ambulance Service control room or by crews themselves at the scene of serious accidents or medical emergencies. Their cars are adapted with ambulance service lights and sirens and they have undergone blue light driver training.

Dr Heavyside said: “During the Covid-19 pandemic those affected by the virus can develop chest infections leading to very low oxygen levels in their blood which can be life threatening. The sickest of these require an anaesthetic allowing them to be placed on a ventilator. Despite being very highly trained, paramedics in ambulance services in the UK are not able to deliver anaesthetics.

“We can give a patient anaesthetic before they get to the hospital, which can also be vital to reduce brain swelling in the case of a head injury, and there are some surgical procedures we can perform, including open heart surgery. We also carry stronger pain relief that is only available to doctors and drugs usually only available in hospital to treat things like severe sepsis, eclampsia, asthma and seizures.”

The biggest asset Bravo Medics brings though is its experience. “Because we’ve been called to a lot of serious incidents, we have seen a lot and we have also seen a lot in hospital. Wiltshire

doesn’t have that many serious incidents so road ambulance crews maybe see one or two a year,” said Dr Heavyside.

“But they do a wonderful job and they have coped very well all these years without us, and it is going to take time for them to get used to calling us out. We will be doing some training with them so that will help and also the patients will benefit.”

The charity gets no funding from the NHS and is now trying to raise more money to recruit more volunteer medics. At present its two doctors are on call four nights a week.

“A few others have expressed interest so my hope is that if we can get the funding, we can double that over the next year or so,” said Dr Heavyside.

“Because of this charity we hope a number of people in serious accidents will get a higher level of care and a proportion of those will either live because of us or will have a better outcome. We hope the people we attend will be more comfortable at the scene having had more pain relief or be taken to a more appropriate hospital than they would have otherwise.”

Fiona Oliver, interim co-chief executive of Wiltshire Community Foundation, said: “This is a new charity that is not only responding to the coronavirus crisis but also a wider issue that will have a huge benefit to the community and we are really pleased to be supporting it.

“We are finding that more and more groups need help because of the pandemic and we really appreciate the support we’ve had so far to be able to fund them. But this need will be with us for a long while yet and our fund will become even more vital as time goes on.”

Find out more about Bravo Medics at bravomedics.org. To donate to the Wiltshire and Swindon Coronavirus Response Fund or to find out how to apply for a grant, go to wiltshirecf.org.uk.