In the mid 90's I worked (not as a volunteer but salaried) for St. John Ambulance at County HQ in Reading. This issue arose whilst I was there not necessarily in terms of fitness to do first aid cover at football matches, fetes etc, but fitness to carry out certain activities within that volunteering, such as;
ability to use, safely, stretchers, carry-chairs etc.
ability to run to accidents
fitness to drive ambulances and so on.
Then you have the volunteers who work in the care sector which St. John, the Red Cross, who need to be as fit or as healthy as nursing staff who work in hospitals...manual handling etc.
There is another side to this where the volunteer sector is exposed to litigation when volunteers suffer ill health or accidents whilst on duty and then become unable to carry out their normal salaried Mon-Fri job. An example of that arose in the mid 90's when a St. John rescue boat on the Thames was involved in an incident and one of the volunteers was injured. His employer claimed against St. John, so you not only have healthrisk management to contend with, but Health & safety issues to consider too. Likewise, on the safety front, there were issues at Reading Football Club where the NHS paramedics were wearing head & face protectors (similar to motorcyclist helmets) yet the St. John volunteers were stood next to them wearing their soft caps. The risk of injury at certain games was identical and on one occasion, a spanner missed the head of a volunteer. As a result, the same helmets were purchased.
Like anything else, these do have to be considered in the light of risk assessments.
Is that of help?
With kind regards,
James Beresford
Occupational Health Adviser RN MIIRSM MIOSH DipOHN Spohn
Heales Medical Ltd
can I ask what your views are on performing PEHS for volunteers, that is
people who are doing work, unpaid, and with no clinical contact or input.
There appear to be a few questions raised by this but rather than putting
these forward I'd be interested to hear others views and see if they come
up with the same conclusion as me.
Thanks
Glenn Raybone
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