Well we are off. 2016 has begun and we are already busy planning the safety of visitors to events all over the country this year.

We are passionate about the events industry and we love providing medical cover – that’s why we do it!

If you are thinking about what medical cover you need at your event then there’s quite a bit to consider. 

If you are having a sporting event it is likely that the licensing authority will have either minimum requirements for medical cover or recommended safe levels. We regularly, have organisers of events tell us that nothing ever happens at their events. We also regularly have organisers thanking us for saving the lives of their competitors or participants.

For public events the Purple Guide comes into play. Quite a few providers haven’t fully adapted the revised version which was written by the Events Industry Forum and has become a gold standard which has been adopted nationwide. Whilst the new guide provides some flexibility to the levels of medical cover provided at an event, its content has been widely accepted as the standard necessary to satisfy insurers and licensors.

Choosing the right medical provider is very important, the approach of going with the cheapest is likely to back fire at the cost of event organiser’s reputations or for higher risk events, simply poor levels of medical care for those who are injured or fall ill. This often results in increased use of 999 NHS services or unnecessary A&E admissions, both of which can count against future license applications.

The biggest problem is not having suitably qualified staff on site. The symptoms of very serious and life threatening illnesses are often the same or similar to those that are not. Only those with experience and advance patient assessment skills are going to be able to assess those. For example you have a patient at your event with abdominal pain, they may have a stomach ache, they may have a life threatening emergency. A first aider or as some firms describe them “EMT”, which is an unprotected term, might refer to someone who has had little more training than a first aid course teaching CPR perhaps 2 days or maybe a week. Furthermore, in the case of a life-threatening emergency, which do happen on 5km runs, the most they are likely to offer someone is reassurance if they are conscious and a blanket, they are likely to have even had any experience of such cases outside of the class room.

That’s where we do things differently. We only take on staff who answer 999 calls or who work in A&E departments, this even for a small event brings many aspects of the emergency department to your event, which can be extremely reassuring when (not if) something goes wrong. Some of our clients have stated that the costs are not much greater than having a first aider and provides them with peace of mind. Some have come begging having had bad experience, having had medical cover cancelled hours before the event on previous occasions or even sadly having had people die at their events, where the outcome could have been different.

Please think about who you want to trust the safety of your guests and your reputation with. Sadly, we can’t cover every event, but we will happily discuss your event with you in order to ensure you have the best cover in place.