It's the first time I've heard of London's cycle responders. These paramedics are fully trained to work on their own and normally operate only in busy areas that are difficult to travel through in an ambulance or a car.
Depending on their training level the equipment cycle responders carry will vary but they'll most likely have with oxygen, defibrillator, airway equipment and some drugs.
Staff on bikes can get through narrow streets, pedestrian areas and shopping centres very easily. They are able to reach patients quickly and start to give life-saving treatment while an ambulance is on the way.
This is great news! 🙂 Ambulances usually can't get through narrow pathways and sometimes these narrow roads are the only way to get to someone in need of help. With bicycles now being used by emergency responders to solve this problem, it's actually a very welcome and wonderful news. I hope to also see it happening here in my country soon since there are also a lot of narrow roads here where only bikes and motorcycles could pass through.
It's a terrific idea, but wouldn't it be faster if they were riding motorcycles? Plus, I think you can carry more stuff with a motorbike than you can on a regular bike, unless it's equipped with special saddle bags or something. Perhaps they use little trailers to help haul the load, I don't know, but it seems like it would be way too slow to have first responders arriving on bikes. This would probably be most useful if the problem took place very close to the hospital. Granted it's more efficient than not being able to get through due to traffic, but not much more just because of the lack of speed.
This should be great in certain situations but they'll never be more fast than a car. But it's certainly a great addition, and the more help the better, for sure.
