Among those who attended the volunteer awards evening, eight volunteers received an outstanding achievement award for the dedication to their role.
The volunteer cohort are made up of four unique roles which benefit the service in several ways including community first responders, ambulance car service drivers, hospital porters and community ambassadors.
Greg joined NEAS in February 2023 as a community first responder, he has shown his commitment to both the organisation and his community, providing over 2,160 hours of availability, and being activated to nearly 290 life-threatening incidents, including cardiac arrest. His willingness to help those in need has been recognised by not only patients but also by members of staff with four letters of appreciation received, commending him for his skills, patience, and empathy. Greg wishes to develop these skills further and has now joined NEAS as a full-time member of staff and he is currently undertaking his Emergency Care Assistant course. Greg has insisted that he wants to continue to respond as a volunteer in his neighbourhood when not on operational duties.
Stephen Dunn - Shildon
Stephen became a CFR in 2011 after chatting with the same paramedic at the scene of two serious road traffic collisions two weeks apart. Stephen is registered as a CFR in Newton Aycliffe; however, he responds across the Northeast as he travels around, the region for work. Stephen is an AED awareness instructor who helps NEAS and his local community with the delivery of first aid training and familiarisation to local community groups. Also assisting the team and community groups with community public access defibrillators (cPAD), ensuring that they are available to the public in their time of need.
In May 2024 Stephen responded to a Category 1 call for a Cardiac Arrest in the shop of Heworth Metro Station. Getting the call while in his office in Felling, Stephen was able to be onsite with the patient within 2 minutes. Upon arrival, bystander CPR was already underway, and Stephen was able to attach a defibrillator, secure the patient's airway, take over CPR, and give oxygen. This was all carried out before the next ambulance response arrived, where Stephen carried on as part of the team, taking turns giving good quality CPR and respiratory support with a bag-valve-mask. The patient was successfully given treatment for approximately 45 minutes.
Ian Short - Northumberland
Ambulance car service (ACS) volunteer, Ian started in 2020 volunteering four days a week. Ian originally was a user of the ACS service and because of this wanted to give something back when he retired. Ian’s wife works at the Wansbeck hospital, and she got the information for him about the role and so he applied. He enjoys meeting and helping people, and this is obvious from the appreciations received from patients about him. He’s a very well-respected volunteer.
Janice Robinson - North
Janice started volunteering back in 2013. From the get-go Janice embraced the role and wanted to get involved to ensure that the patients were front, and centre and that Volunteers were represented by being our longest serving member of the Volunteer committee. Nothing is too much trouble for Janice. Her aim to treat people as she would want to be treated.
If we can go back to when covid hit us in 2020 it was a reactive time, and we were dealing with situations as they developed. One of the issues we had as an organisation was to ensure that a confidential process was delivered in the way of payroll, the royal mail wasn’t at that time able to reliably deliver our payment runs on time and so Janice was asked if this was something she would be able to deliver on a monthly basis. So, until recently Janice has continued to do this task, amazingly never complaining about the weather conditions, and putting aside her own personal issues, this was a task that had to be completed. Our processes have now changed and will be very seldomly needed. Throughout the years Janice has built up an rapport with Yorkshire Ambulance service and I’m sure has made friends for life from this.
Tsz Kin (Patrick) Sun - Newcastle
Community ambassador, Patrick Sun joined the team not long after moving to Newcastle from Hong Kong in 2021. He soon become the main link with the Hong Kong community in the North East, sharing key health and covid information with his community. He utilised his community WhatsApp group to keep everyone up to date with the important health information the Trust was disseminating. Patrick has travelled around the region, usually after a long shift at his day job, with our positive action lead helping deliver workshops and representing the Trust at community events. He is always available to support new and old volunteers and he takes pride in representing the Trust. Having moved to the UK alone, Patrick has made his NEAS community ambassador volunteers as his family.
Alex Marshall - Newcastle
Alex started volunteering for NEAS as a volunteer porter at RVI hospital over six years ago. Alex was volunteering at the Wansbeck hospital as a meet and greeter for two hours, a few days a week. When Alex then got talking to other volunteers bringing in patients to hospital, he asked if he could apply as a hospital porter. Doing the volunteering role has given Alex the ability to progress his hobby from putting together a short film to having a children’s book published in the coming weeks. This has all been made possible by gaining the confidence and ability to speak up by meeting people. Alex volunteers 3 days a week, 4 hrs per day and absolutely lovers his role, stating that all he wants to do is give something back to the NHS as they saved his dad’s life.
Johnson Lawson - Sunderland
Johnson is a dedicated and professional community ambassador in Sunderland who has spent time attending workshops with the team and taking in all the learning to share with his community. He sometimes works with schools and has used this as an opportunity to teach young people on how to use the service correctly. When a request to support the project is sent out, he is always one of the first to volunteer and has even biked across the region during the bus strikes to get to an event. He is a key link to the community and always represents the Trust with pride and respect.
Daniel Thompson - Newcastle
Daniel has been a volunteer porter at RVI hospital since 2017, volunteering twice a week at the RVI hospital. Before this Daniel was studying health and social care with adults and children at college, whilst doing this the connections advisor mentioned that there might be some volunteering opportunities in some of the hospitals. He also did some research and found out about the volunteer porter role and applied. Daniel loves the role, enjoys meeting new people and has made new friends with the other porters,
