PLANS to replace firefighter co-responders with community volunteer equivalents are enduring ongoing criticism as pressure on the proposed changes persists.

A former participant of the fire co-responder scheme has scrutinised the latest justification for the sought-after changes set out by the South Western Ambulance Service Trust (SWAST).

Mark Nesbitt said he felt SWAST’s most senior management needed to take the matter and “undertake a proper balanced review of the whole issue”.

“The decision to implement this change has clearly been taken from a blind, SWAST-wide, pro-community first responder (CFR) policy perspective without any appreciation of the actual issues involved in emergency response in remote rural areas and the clear advantages of the present fire co-responder (FCR) model.”

A SWAST spokesperson reiterated that it would not exit any fire co-responder scheme until it had the appropriate community first responder cover, and that it was still working with the fire service to provide the best service for patients.

Mr Nesbitt acknowledged the fire co-responder service, which predominantly covers hard-to-reach rural areas, was “not perfect” but was “far, far better than the community first responder alternative proposed”.

“ SWAST should now be working with Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service (DSFRS) to improve the FCR service to the benefit of the ambulance and fire services and, most importantly, the rural communities they serve,” he added.

“And if SWAST wishes to improve its response more generally in rural areas, it could instead prioritise recruiting CFRs in those areas which do not already have the significant advantage of a team of FCRs in place offering 24:7 emergency cover.

“This would be the logical way for SWAST to improve their service to remote rural communities and to start restoring the damage they have already done to their own reputation.”

A SWAST spokesperson said: “In August 2025, we made a commitment to our local communities that we would not exit any fire co-responding scheme until the appropriate backfill arrangements were in place.“This commitment still stands, and FCRs across the South West are still responding to patients, when it’s clinically appropriate and they are the nearest, available resource.

“We continue to work closely with our fire partners, to ensure we provide the best possible service to our patients in a medical emergency.”

While fire co-responders receive payment for their call-outs, their CFR equivalents are volunteers.

In September, SWAST’s boss, Dr John Martin, told Devon County Council’s health scrutiny committee that the ambulance service had acknowledged its concerns from earlier in the year, and so had removed the target of ending the fire co-responder scheme over 12 months.

Councillor Jess Bailey (Independent, Otter Valley), has continually pressed the ambulance trust for more rigorous data before pressing ahead, and asked for a revised quality and equality impact assessment (QEIA) to ensure the potential impact on rural communities of switching away from fire co-responders was fully understood.

Mr Nesbitt has now scrutinised this formal QEIA document produced by SWAST that acts as an assessment of the current service and its potential replacement.

He believes SWAST has not acknowledged explicitly enough that CFRs are dispatched on their own, whereas their fire peers always attend in pairs.

SWAST stated CFRs responded from their homes or work address so did attend individually, but could be supported by an ambulance crew or a GoodSAM responder.

Mr Nesbitt also believes that data showing response times for CFRs is skewed because they don’t cover the hard-to-reach rural areas that their fire peers do.

SWAST said it had already declared to Devon County Council’s health and adult care scrutiny committee that like-for-like data was not possible because the two cohorts didn’t operate in the same areas.

However, SWAST added it did have CFRs responding in remote locations across the trust as a whole, and that due to them responding directly to patients, it had seen “significantly quicker response times”.

In terms of availability, Mr Nesbitt said data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act suggested he did not think CFRs could be as frequently available as the fire cohort.

But SWAST stated that CFRs commit to a minimum of 12 hours of responding per week, often doing more, and they book on, meaning the ambulance service knows in advance when they are available.

With the fire co-responders, fire control needs to be contacted first as there is no advance visibility over whether an FCR team is available.

SWAST said it has more than 700 volunteer CFRs across its whole patch, who responded to 36,031 incidents across the South West region, and were called to all categories of incident, including the most serious category one.

Devon’s CFRs responded to 2,449 category 1 incidents in the past 12 months, compared to 668 category 1 incidents for fire co-responders.

SWAST is aiming to phase out fire co-responders, or FCRs, in favour of volunteer community equivalents, known as community first responders, or CFRs.

Fire co-responders are present in 15 of Devon’s on-call fire stations, and the co-responder system involves firefighters who have opted to be part of the scheme being dispatched to the most serious medical incidents to ensure patients get the fastest response times.

However, the ambulance trust has been trying to amplify the existing equivalent CFR service that sees trained members of the community respond.

They deal with all categories of incident, and while they don’t have blue lights like emergency vehicles, they can be sent directly from their homes, whereas their fire service peers attend their station first before heading to the emergency.