Suffolk Accident Rescue Service (SARS)

SARS is the chosen charity of Needham Market FC for the Suffolk Champions Charity Cup.

SUFFOLK Accident Rescue Service (SARS) is the chosen charity of Needham Market FC for the Suffolk Champions Charity Cup.

Needham Market, winners of the 2021-22 Turners Hyundai Suffolk Premier Cup, face CNet Training Suffolk Senior Cup winners Ipswich Wanderers in the Suffolk Champions Charity Cup match at Bloomfields, home of Needham Market FC, on Tuesday, July 12th, kick-off 7.30pm.

Anyone purchasing a ticket online for the match will be supporting the charity of their choice.

To purchase a ticket for the match click here

Gina Saunders, who is Project Officer and has worked at SARS for more than three years, explains the charity’s work.

First of all tell us about the work undertaken by your charity?

Suffolk Accident Rescue Service (SARS) is a local emergency medical charity which has been operating in Suffolk for over 50 years. We are mobilised by the ambulance service, as an enhanced resource, to attend patients in need of urgent, specialist medical care before they reach hospital.

This could be someone suffering serious trauma (eg serious road traffic collisions) or life-threatening medical illness (eg cardiac arrest).

SARS volunteer responders include Anaesthetists, Critical Care Paramedics and Consultants in Emergency Medicine. These specialist clinicians carry equipment and drugs not normally found on frontline ambulances.

This allows SARS responders to undertake advanced medical procedures at the scene of an incident which, normally, would only be possible in a hospital environment.

This can mean truly life-saving interventions and reduces the chances of patients suffering permanent disability.

Our doctors and paramedics respond in their spare time and volunteer their services without charge. This ‘donation’ of time equates to many hundreds of thousands of pounds each year, and the benefit that SARS responders can bring to a patient in terms of life-saving interventions, relief from pain and quicker recovery times is immeasurable.

SARS charity July 2022 2

Where is your charity based?

Our administrative headquarters is at Woolpit and we have clinical responders based across the whole of Suffolk.

How many people work for your charity – full-time staff, if any, and also the number of volunteers?

There are only 2.5 full-time members of staff and over 60 volunteers – 34 are the clinical volunteer responders and 26 are charity volunteers who help us raise funds, attend events, deliver talks and run free CPR training sessions.

Have you linked with Needham Market FC in the past?

Needham Market FC Sportsman’s Dinner took place last month at Portman Road in Ipswich and they kindly chose to support SARS from funds raised on that evening.

If you have, how and why did you do so and, if not, why have the club chosen you to be their charity?

The relationship with Needham Market FC has recently been established as a SARS volunteer responder attended a serious incident involving Byron Lawrence, a Needham Market player.

The SARS responder assessed and treated the player on scene before accompanying them by land ambulance to the Emergency Department at Ipswich Hospital.

How will being the club’s chosen charity help you?

The money raised will help towards purchasing all the essential items we need to keep SARS running – from the drugs, protective kit/clothing, fuel, insurances, training and of course all the medical equipment used by our volunteer clinicians.

It costs more than £150,000 each year to keep SARS running and in our 50th anniversary year we are aiming to raise an additional £50,000. The extra money will help us buy advanced monitors, ventilators and other life-saving equipment. SARS charity July 2022 3