Does anyone else work for a combo paid/volley EMS only dept?

[emergency grrl]

I am researching other departments who have a combo paid/volunteer EMS. I want to know your SOPs for volunteers responding to calls. Right now our dept has a few volunteers who respond from home. In theory they should be at the station after a tone in less than 5 min. We have paid full time that sometimes are stuck waiting for 8 min. What does your department do?

 

[Guardian]

I am researching other departments who have a combo paid/volunteer EMS. I want to know your SOPs for volunteers responding to calls. Right now our dept has a few volunteers who respond from home. In theory they should be at the station after a tone in less than 5 min. We have paid full time that sometimes are stuck waiting for 8 min. What does your department do?

I vollie with a fire station that's combination paid and volunteer. We have vollie crews on duty part of the time and paid crews on duty the other part. The paid crews are not dependent on vollie and vice versa. Volunteers are able to respond with paid if necessary. That way, if there's a big incident, the vollie guys can come in and back up the paid guys. I don't think your paid guys should have to wait for vollies. They should probably respond in separate vehicles and your paid guys should be able to staff at least one or two vehicles by themselves to accomplish this....

 

[rescuecpt]

Our department is staffed full time with vollies, and has one paid medic on from 0000-1900 who uses the responder car. The medic goes to all calls in our district, and the ambulance w/the vollies follows. If the vollie crew has ALS, they transport and the medic goes back to base. If ALS is needed and there isn't a vollie ALS provider, the medic will transport w/the vollie crew.

 

[Jon]

My ambulance Co is staffed daylight hours by at least 2 full BLS crews and a supervisor. during the evenings/nights, we have a paid supervisor and at least 2 full volunteer crews.

We always have 2 crews on duty. In the event we need to get the 3rd, 4th, or 5th ambulance on the street, volunteers come in from home or are already on-station "hanging out"

Our squad brags that we haven't missed a call in 15+ years. We always respond, almost always within the 8-minute window before next-due is called.


At the FD/Ambulance Co I used to run with - we had 1 ambulance in addition to the fire apparatus, and we had 2 paid staff (FF/EMT) on duty 24x7, with 3 or 4 on duty on weekdays.

The ambulance rolled with whoever was on-station when the tones dropped - usually the paid staff. If an EMT "went direct" to the scene for a medical call, one of the paid staff would drive the EMT's car back to the station so the paid staff would be availible to drive fire appratus if needed. The ambulance wouldn't wait for a volunteer unless they called station to say they would be there "momentarly"

Waiting for 8 minutes if you have a crew on station isn't acceptable.

 

[FF894]

I am researching other departments who have a combo paid/volunteer EMS. I want to know your SOPs for volunteers responding to calls. Right now our dept has a few volunteers who respond from home. In theory they should be at the station after a tone in less than 5 min. We have paid full time that sometimes are stuck waiting for 8 min. What does your department do?

Is it out of the question to have the vollie meet them at the scene instead of station if it will be that long?

 

[Anomalous]

I am researching other departments who have a combo paid/volunteer EMS. I want to know your SOPs for volunteers responding to calls.

While you are digging out your SOP's, how about a complete set of NIMS compliant SOP's? I think that would be easier than repairing what we have.