Newton Abbot Hospital League of Friends has donated a ‘vital piece of training equipment’ to volunteer emergency doctors.

The League of Friends’ donation of £3,224 enabled BASICS Devon to buy a ‘Difficult Airway Simulator’, which will help train the volunteer medics in intubating patients.

BASICS Devon operations manager Conor Calby explains to Newton Abbot Hospital League of Friends how their donated equipment will help volunteer medics save lives.
BASICS Devon operations manager Conor Calby explains to Newton Abbot Hospital League of Friends how their donated equipment will help volunteer medics save lives. (Jo Bowery / MDA)

BASICS Devon, part of the British Association for Immediate Care, is a network of volunteer emergency doctors who support the South Western Ambulance Service by using their specialist skills and equipment to provide pre-hospital emergency care.

Representatives from BASICS Devon visited the League of Friends at Newton Abbot hospital this week to explain how the simulator works. BASICS Devon operations manager Conor Calby explained how vital the simulator will be in training the volunteer doctors to better manage ‘unanticipated difficult intubation’, such as in the case of where anaphylactic shock swells the tongue, in accordance with the Difficult Airway Society guidelines.

BASICS Devon operations manager Conor Calby demonstrates how the Difficult Airway Simulator is used to train medics
BASICS Devon operations manager Conor Calby demonstrates how the Difficult Airway Simulator is used to train medics (Jo Bowery / MDA)

Newton Abbot Hospital League of Friends has donated a total of £22,447 to BASICS Devon since 2018 contributing to the purchase of life-saving equipment and an emergency response vehicle. This is ‘an incredible amount’, said BASICS Devon fundraising manager Aimie Bull. ‘We are enormously grateful to the League of Friends for helping to equip our responders to help treat the sick and injured,’ she added.

Last year, BASICS Devon volunteers attended 441 callouts and were first on scene for nearly a third of these. Cardiac arrests are one of the main reasons for BASICS volunteers to be called out.