First in an emergency

SIR – In your report headed “999 handlers will get longer to assess calls” (July 13), you mention that a volunteer responder on a bike may attend life-threatening calls.

These are community first responders (CFR). I am one. I live in a rural area and use my car to cover a radius of six miles.

We undergo continuous training, both within our group and with the ambulance service. As well as treating suspected heart attacks, asthma patients and other life-threatening conditions, we attend cardiac arrests and carry a defibrillator. We are taught how to use this and can perform effective cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Britain has one of the worst rates in Europe of survival from cardiac arrest outside a hospital, and the possibility of survival diminishes rapidly if CPR is not administered. In an ideal world there would always be an ambulance available to meet an eight-minute response time. However, that is unlikely to happen in the near future, especially in rural areas. Jeremy Claydon

Biddenden, Kent