So after four weeks, today is my last day in the St John Ambulance office here in Bristol. This final week was all about writing my project report, which I have now completed and sent to my project supervisor for feedback on any changes that may need to be made.
My project looked at the duties/events covered by St John Ambulance and the types of injuries treated. It also looked at areas where volunteers wanted more training or felt the training they received could be improved. The results and findings have been included in my report (waiting for approval before attaching a link to it as the report contains some potentially confidential data). However, here is one of the graphs produced:
The graph above shows the percentage of duties/events covered by category in South West Region during 2015. Duties were classified into one of four categories as follows:
- Low intensity indoor events e.g. Pantos, Films, Theatre Performances, Musicals
- High intensity indoor events – e.g. Martial Arts, Dance Competitions
- Low intensity outdoor events – e.g. Fetes/Fayres/Carnivals, Country Shows, Fundays
- High intensity outdoor events – e.g. Football, Rugby, Motorsport, Equestrian, Racing, Running, Cycling
What’s the relevance of working out the percentages of events covered you may be thinking..? The idea behind calculating percentages was to allow first aid training to be more focussed and specific to the type of events covered. As the data was broken down further into the districts and even further into individual units, it allowed me to see what types of events were being covered and in what proportion. For example, for one unit, 81% of events covered were low intensity indoor events and therefore the recommendation was made that first aid was focussed around the types of injuries/conditions that are most likely to occur as result. Similarly, another unit had over 50% of events covered as high intensity outdoor events, which were mainly equestrian or rugby events. Therefore the recommendation in this case was for first aid training to focus on neck or spinal injuries – as they were commonly associated with such events.
A wider range of topics were addressed in the report and evidence was put forward to support my proposed recommendations for changes/improvements to the training. These will now be put forward to the South West Region Management team, hopefully with some positive results, although of course they are by no means obliged to implement any of the recommendations!
The Charity Insights Scheme has been a great opportunity to experience a workplace environment, particularly a 9-5 office job, and for any future students reading this and thinking about applying through the Charity Insights Scheme, I would highly recommend doing so! I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my project supervisor, Des Young, as well as all the other staff in and around the office who have helped me over the past four weeks to achieve the aims of my project. A special thanks also to Jessica and Barnaby for giving me the opportunity to carry out this project!
The end of this project does not mark the end of my time with St John Ambulance however. I will still be out and about either in Bristol or London continuing to help provide first aid cover at events and I will continue to be in touch with Des and the regional team to take forward the findings of my project.
Thanks for reading – hope it’s been interesting!