Essex County Fire and Rescue Service has extended its partnership working with the East of England Ambulance Service.

The Service will be delivering breathing apparatus and gas tight suit training to two HART teams to help operational staff to stay safe when delivering urgent medical care to patients in a hazardous environment.

Steven Moore, HART Manager, said: "We chose ECFRS as they presented the best package to us and have recognised professional expertise in this area as they do this type of work on a daily basis."

"The training will allow us to deliver patient care in hazardous and challenging environments in a safe way. There are many occasions when patients are inside buildings needing immediate medical attention - once trained, our staff will be able to work alongside firefighters saving valuable minutes and increasing the chances of a positive outcome."

This extends the three year contract between the two organisations which sees ECFRS to deliver a specially designed, two week course for members of HART staff who have volunteered to participate, along with refresher training.

ECFRS' commercial trading arm, EFA Trading, won the contract. Divisional Officer Ian Adams said: "We are delighted to have beaten the competition to win this contract and are certain that the training we will be providing to paramedics will lead to a better service to the public during major incidents. It will mean that medical experts can get to patients immediately to deliver pain relief or treatment in a hazardous environment and secure casualties before they are brought out by firefighters.

"We already work closely with the East of England Ambulance Service on a daily basis at incidents. This extends our partnership working and hopefully will lead to some joint exercises so that the HART teams can practice the skills we are teaching them."

Posted 26/10/2012 originally on our sister site www.ambulancenews.com by richard.hook@pavpub.com