First aid on coast

Hornsea’s do-it-yourself remedy

THE TOUR de Yorkshire’s community spirit has certainly reached Hornsea, where volunteers are preparing to launch a first-aid centre tomorrow to help compensate for the closure of the resort’s minor injuries unit.

This initiative is a timely one after Britain enjoyed the hottest May Day bank holiday on record – and families flocked to Yorkshire’s coast. The vagaries of the weather – that perennial talking point – illustrate the dilemma facing health chiefs.

On scorching days, a small town like Hornsea (population 8,432 residents according to the last Census) needs some health cover – the nearest hospital at Beverley is over 13 miles away on roads invariably clogged with day visitors.

And former midwife Rosie Bullard, who is overseeing the training of first-aid volunteers, believes NHS chiefs did not recognise usage of the MIU in their calculations. She says it was used 10 times a day, while the clinical commissioning group said it only treated 10 patients a week on average.

Either way, this one example gives further credence to The Yorkshire Post’s recent series on the region’s coast – and why resorts are still the poor relation when it comes to the allocation of resources by policy-makers.

Sticking-plaster solutions can only go so far, and while it is right that specialist healthcare is developed at dedicated centres of excellence in specific hospitals, emergency first aid should be a prerequisite for the region’s resorts.