British Red Cross to stop all Event First Aid Cover in the UK from 1st January 2020

LMS has worked with the British Red Cross providing Health Care Professionals and Ambulance support to their Event First Aid teams for many years.

It comes as a shock to learn that the British Red Cross will no longer provide any first aid cover or event medical support as of 31st December 2019, with the unit formally closing down in March 2020, as per the statement by the Red Cross CEO below. We are working with Red Cross volunteers & Ambulance Crews to understand if we can find any roles within LMS, although historically we have not employed first-aiders, we appreciate many of the Red Cross volunteer had extended training. Red Cross Team Members can apply to join LMS Here

We are also working with, and happy to hear from, any event organisers who have been left without medical cover for their events in 2020 especially as the other voluntary, aid society St John Ambulance, are often at capacity over the summer in the South East and call on our services regularly to help cover their events. We understand our pricing model has not been significantly different from the Red Cross in many circumstances, even though we deploy professional staff.

Michael Adamson, chief executive of British Red Cross, said: “In recent years, we have seen increasing pressures on both our income and the demands for our assistance, which means we must prioritise how we use every pound donated to us.”

“Unfortunately, our event first aid work has been running at a financial loss for some time – the service still requires £1.8m of donations annually to cover the shortfall between income and costs – and this is diverting vital funds from our efforts to provide emergency support for major domestic and global crises.”

“So it is with real sadness that we have taken the very difficult decision to close our event first aid service by 31 March, 2020.”