A Cumbrian charity fears the cost of living crisis could soon have a huge impact on its ability to perform lifesaving work.
Emergency medical care service BEEP Doctors Cumbria is pleading with people and businesses to make donations to ensure its vital work is safeguarded.
“Every penny donated makes a huge difference to us,” said BEEP Doctors’ Cumbria chair Dr Theo Weston MBE.
But he warned: “With the current cost of living crisis, including soaring energy bills, our fear is that regular donations will reduce, which will have a massive impact on our ability to perform lifesaving work across Cumbria.”
Cumbria’s team of 12 volunteer doctors are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They work closely with the police and fire service, North West Ambulance Service, Great North Air Ambulance Service and North West Air Ambulance.
At incidents BEEP Doctors can carry out some surgical procedures, pre-hospital anaesthetics and administer drugs that most road crew paramedics cannot, such as ketamine to give pain relief and allow fracture manipulation.
Many of the emergencies they attend are road traffic collisions, as well as incidents involving farms, pushbikes, horses and water.
It costs between £150,000 and £200,000 a year to run the service, which receives no NHS funding.
“The cost of everything we use has increased – drugs, equipment and consumables such as syringes, defibrillator pads and breathing circuits,” said Dr Chris Moss, one of the BEEP doctors. “Each incident we attend can use up hundreds of pounds of these consumables.”
He said fuel costs had risen significantly, which had led to a huge rise in operational costs.
“Some of our money comes from grants and trusts funds but these are under pressure because the cost of living crisis means there are a lot more applications as charities struggle with fundraising,” said Dr Moss.
He said legacy funding had dried up over recent years.
He said: “We are not necessarily expecting people to donate a house – it can simply be leaving a couple of hundred pounds to us in a will. But as people have less money to spend, they are less likely to give donations to charities like ours as part of a will.”
He added the relatively sparsely-populated nature of Cumbria also played a part. “This is not like London, where there are nearly 10 million people. In Cumbria there are far fewer people to donate to charity,” said Dr Moss.
“Many people in this county also work in hospitality, which is suffering because of rising energy bills. Those staff are worried about their jobs and their own rising bills so are less likely to give to charity.”
He said BEEP Doctors relied on small donations – what he called ‘trickle funding’.
“It is the small coffee mornings and the children’s cake sales – these are so important to us. Just getting a cheque through the post for £50 means the world to us and can really make a lifesaving difference.”
The charity’s plea was for people to set up regular direct debits to help fund BEEP Doctors. “If we could get 5,000 people donating £1 a month it would make the world of difference to how we operate,” said Dr Moss.
He added: “We do have a small reserve to keep operational but the more we have to dig into it the tighter things become.”
To donate to BEEP Doctors, text BEEP to 70085 to donate £2 or BEEP to 70450 to donate £10. More information by emailing [email protected]
