Paramedics and police officers from the Joint Response Unit

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service - Essentially, JRU the model, is that it is a paramedic and a police officer and they crew together on a purpose-built vehicle.

We target calls that require both agencies.

Special Constable Jack Mottram - We were sent to an RTC (road traffic collision), car versus pedestrian, and we arrived, and he was very, very badly injured, and he died as a result of his injuries, and a chap comes running, sort of into the into the scene as such, and it was a really surreal moment.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service - A lady I went to and, she was a victim of quite horrific domestic violence. The offender wasn't there anymore, he’d left, and she was scared and really, really quite petrified and had some quite significant injuries as well, and then for the police to actually in a really timely fashion, start that evidence capture and getting details and trying to locate the offender, the sort of look on her face of relief when we were able to actually sort of say to her ‘that he's been arrested, and she's safe really’ was yeah, really, really rewarding.

Special Constable Jack Mottram - Had I have not done the JRU, started working on the JRU, I don't think I'd ever experience that feeling, and I would never have got the bug to do the job that I do today. [Music]

PC Martyn Walker - Welcome to More Than the Badge, a Kent Police podcast. My name is PC Martyn Walker, and I will be your host. Today's episode is with members of the Joint Response Unit, Special Constable Jack Mottram and Alex Wilson from South East Coast Ambulance Service.

Welcome to the podcast Jack and Alex.

Special Constable Jack Mottram and Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service - Hello, thank you for having us.

PC Martyn Walker - Looking forward to finding a little bit about the Joint Response Unit, JRU for short, and the fine work you guys do, and, dipping in on my brief interactions and some of my adventures, I was lucky enough and fortuitous to be involved in.

So, Joint Response Unit’s been running for quite a while, and it's that, it is what it says on the tin, Kent Police and the ambulance service, SECAmb for short.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service - SECAmb for short.

PC Martyn Walker - Yeah, I just want to get it get it right. So, can you tell us a bit about your roles within SECAmb, and Kent Police. Lets start with yourself Alex, because you're quite senior aren't you.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Oh, I don't know about that, I'm not very senior, no.

So yeah, I'm Alex I'm a paramedic first and foremost. I've been in the ambulance service now for over ten years, and for the last sort of four, five years or so, I've been looking after the Joint Response Unit. The manager that oversees it for the ambulance service. So, I'm an operational team leader, so I line manage the staff, the paramedic staff that work on JRU and essentially work very closely with Jack and others from Kent Police, to essentially keep everything running smoothly and yeah, let everyone go out and continue to do the good work they all do.

PC Martyn Walker - I love it, Alex is trying to put himself in the tin there, of you [laughing] are just so broad ranging, that’s locking you into like a micro snapshot of what you do.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah, there's some other bits to it as well, but they're less exciting bits so yeah, but no it's a good role I love working for the ambulance service, and yeah the fact that I get to work so closely with the police as well is a really unique job and not many people in the ambulance service can say they do that, and I'm very proud to do it, for both Kent Police and for SECAmb.

PC Martyn Walker - and a pioneer, because as it evolves, you doing the policy writing, you help the staff and everything, and you are part of the family now aren't you?

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah, I think we all are, yeah it doesn't matter what uniform you're in, if you're involved in JRU then we're one big family really, so yeah, it's great work.

PC Martyn Walker – Definitely. Jack, tell us a little bit about your role.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – So, I've been a special since 2018, a long time, I never intended him being a special this long, but here I am.

In terms of JRU, I do very similar to what Alex does. I do the, do some planning sort of weekends and just ensure that all the specials generally that are out on JRU, any issues that they have we sort of tackle them.

Quite often Alex and I spend hours on the phone chatting about different things that have happened, different things that you know need to happen, vehicles breaking down, we just yeah, spend lots of time on the phone with each other.

PC Martyn Walker – People just see that vehicle out there and it’s the planning, the crewing’s, all the logistics of getting the fleet together, dealing with it, and when you say specials, you're a special constable, you're a volunteer for Kent Police.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yes, I am yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – and you got the bug didn't you. Come on, let's just get it out there now what happened, what do you do for a day job now?

Special Constable Jack Mottram – [Laughing]. I got the bug whilst working on JRU and I jumped ship from being a civilian with Kent Police and I went and joined SECAmb, and I am now a student paramedic, internally with SECAmb, doing a degree that I never said I was going to do, all thanks to the work of the JRU.

PC Martyn Walker – So, it does have that spin off.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – We've got some of our workforce that do volunteer as specials though so, yeah we've got a few members of the ambulance service that do volunteer.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah, it's good, it is good, and the Joint Response Unit as well, we don't have the volunteers in we do utilise regular officers, but it's predominantly driven by the volunteers, the special constables.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely.

PC Martyn Walker – So Alex, how do the police and paramedics work together in joint response now, you mentioned about this ongoing relationship, but how do you work together?

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – So, I think a bit of background to JRU. So, over six years ago now, JRU was sort of formed of a brief idea, from sort of people within Kent Police and also SECAmb, and upon looking at it we realised very quickly that SECAmb and Kent Police are each other's most frequent caller. We generate a lot of activity through the services with requesting support or assistance on different jobs, and the idea of being able to work more closely with sort of one of our main customers as such for both agencies, was a really sort of promising and positive idea with the looks of it.

So, a trial was started initially just on Friday and Saturday nights, and it was pioneered really with the Special Constabulary, so a small team of paramedics and special volunteers, went out on a vehicle that we sort of repurposed to trial it for a few months, and very quickly the data was really promising, and anyway six years later we're now in a position where we've got two vehicles out, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and then we put additional vehicles on sort of Friday and Saturday nights so when we know there's going to be peak demand, for either the ambulance service or Kent Police as well.

So, essentially JRU the model is that, it is a paramedic so it's an experienced paramedic that's got a good couple of years under their belt, sort of working front line, and a police officer, that is now either a regular paid police officer from one of the local policing teams or a special constable and they crew together on a purpose built vehicle, and we target calls that require both agencies, that's bottom line the work that we will go to and target. So, we review the 999 calls coming into the ambulance service and coming into Kent Police, and a lot of the time the incidents that we attend come into both agencies because there's a need for both services, and the whole idea is to get to those incidents that require both agencies quicker, deal with them in a shorter fashion and quicker time, and then hopefully provide a more seamless care for the community of Kent really and patients that we serve and victims of crime so, that might be navigating them to a more appropriate place of support for a mental health condition or trying to keep them out of hospital or A&E or, and allow police to do their investigations and onward management of a of a crime or allegation that's been made as well so, that's a summary really of what we try and do.

PC Martyn Walker – It's hard to snapshot what you do. Like saying put the umbrella up but actually underneath that, you have the mental health triage, you have the dealing with the crimes, it's quite complex what you get involved in and the stories and the good works and the good practices you could, your list could fill the room here and now.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – It's really hard to sort of describe one shift because every shift is so different, we, police and ambulance, sort of colleagues deal with such a wide variety of things on an everyday basis, and especially JRU we're dealing with quite complex scenes, complex individuals at times, dealing with some quite volatile or hostile scenes with perhaps some people that aren't particularly pleased to see the police or the ambulance, and we’re dealing with some real victims that have been sort of subjected to quite horrible crimes or conditions or whatever that might be, and actually for us to be able to work together with another organisation that responds to them, and hopefully provide a more seamless, concise offering for the Kent and the community is yeah really exciting and something that we've, I think, mastered over the years that we've been doing it.

PC Martyn Walker – I kind of think, I was fortunate to, when the Channel 5 were filming to go out and do a few shifts when they were, as an uplift you know the volunteers are out there, and it is an experience you can't put it into words what you do experience, you and you've got to walk it, to do it, and the turning off from being a cop to the paramedic to being a paramedic to a cop, it's and that was encumbered by Channel 5, obviously you two are heroes of live TV, you know, you're on the photos, you looked good, that’s what I'm saying [laughing], but that encapsulated that so the by-product of what we're saying the JRU really is, is an accelerated service and golden hour, whether it be a mental medical need for an emergency response, be it criminal or policing isn't it and it works quite well and it's grown hasn't it, it's snowballed, it's massive.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – It has, yeah and we've had real interest from other ambulance services other police forces. We've had people visit from quite literally sort of all over the world as well in engagement with Canada, America, we’ve had someone from Northern Ireland a few months ago, and yeah other parts of the UK so, yeah it’s really exciting that we're able to help pioneer sort of this, this space in the emergency services and help share that around really with others that are interested as well.

PC Martyn Walker – A win for the people of Kent, and hopefully, if it's mirrored, where it will.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely.

PC Martyn Walker – What is the main purpose of the Joint Response Unit then?

Special Constable Jack Mottram – So, the main purpose of the Joint Response Unit is, it's quite, as we said, it's quite niche.

Starting from a policing point of view, it's to deal with any jobs that require a police officer and a paramedic, that's quite simply how I explain it. If you can think of a job that needs a police officer and a paramedic, we'll go to it; road traffic collisions, mental health calls, assaults, stabbings. It's just a unit essentially where we can turn up together, and we can we can work as we've said seamlessly, to achieve whatever the aim of that job may be, whether it is the police officer dealing with the victim, taking statement from the victim whilst there's a paramedic there that can assess injuries, and we don't have to sort of break that continuity with whoever that victim may be, and we can provide them a better service, and it's a really simple sort of one liner we work together as we walk in, and everyone sort of just ‘ah okay that's why there's a police officer and a paramedic’.

The other thing that we do quite a lot, and it's not something that any police officers would have done before, is attending SECAmb category one calls, so they’re the highest category of calls, cardiac arrest essentially. Police officers across the county may or may not have done CPR in their time, but if they come on to JRU, they're pretty much going to at some point, because we've got some really nice cars that can, that can get places a lot quicker than what ambulances can, and we tend to be first at scene of category one calls quite often.

I can't say anything but good things about it, it's just a great unit to provide the best service that both organisations want to provide, and we just manage to do that by simply being together and having that great working relationship.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah, and without sounding too gooey, it is reassurance, it is serving the public, it is our mantras isn't it, and it's unique, you can't describe to anyone can you Jack, when you go out as a police officer and, before I did some of the uplift shifts to support, I went out on a JRU shift and I found myself having to, where I'm in a policing mindset, you've got to be able to switch to the needs of the business of a paramedic and during my, that particular shift, the calls can flip, you said about a cat one, so we, they had a crew down button going, I've got my Taser, I can go as a, I'm going to ultimately deal with somebody that's potentially violent or, you know, and I'm in my criminal mindset, am I going to need to deploy that I've got all these options, and then on the flip of a coin a cat one comes in, and it's a child with breathing difficulties, and I felt for a moment really helpless because I had to switch my brain and go ‘well you ain't going to be using your Taser’ and the best I did was, be the second to hold the hand of the child and the bag, and it was quite a, I'll always remember, it's quite a unique feeling, very rewarding and that was the epitome then, that's when I kind of started thinking, I think I'm getting the JRU. Obviously, I don't do as much as you guys, and you got a plethora of stories but, it's that time thing isn't it, it's that time factor just talking to people sometimes isn't it.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – It's also that human nature. Everybody in the police and the ambulance service wants to help people, so, we've just honed in on that wanting to help people, put two people that want to help people together in different ways, and then it's just kind of, as you've said snowballed to now three Battenburg cars that are, they're the only three in the UK that are Battenburg quite as they are with green, blue.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah and that does run through, and funnily enough before we started this recording we, myself and us were talking, that you know you've got the livery on there but actually when you're in there as a cop, the paramedic and the cop, you kind of replicate that livery don't you, because you have to switch roles, you've got to be, it's quite a specialist function really I'd imagine, that's what you've created.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – It's a really unique role for the paramedics in particular because, they, they're working in, essentially they're going to similar calls they respond to on an ambulance, but all of a sudden they're in a, in a very different environment, and whether that might be they're getting to a job perhaps and a bit earlier on in the lifespan of that incident where it's still perhaps a bit unsafe that scene, or there's still some hostile people there that perhaps want to cause harm to other people or police or even us at times, so it's a very different environment for the team to work in, and that's why that level of experience and the fact that they work so closely with police officers is really beneficial, and you get to a point where I could work with Jack on a shift and we arrive at an incident and I'm 90% sure I know what Jack's thinking and what policing steps he's going to have to go through, and Jack's probably a bad example now he works for us, but before he worked for us, he probably knew kind of what we were, could help actually someone looks really unwell that this isn't one that we've got time to play with and somebody needs some medical treatment quick and Jack would sort of get that quite early on as well.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah, and interesting that, and I suppose it's got like a vicarious learning isn't it, and that's interesting, and some of the paramedics as well, they'll suddenly know. I mean a paramedic when would you know on a paramedic to know that we need to separate victims and witnesses or grab out, we need to secure that from an evidential point of view, and on the flip side the officer knowing that we need to get that oxygen bag in.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely.

PC Martyn Walker – Or where's the defib, what we're going to do, you know it's so, there's learning as well, and everyone benefits even the crews don't they?

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – Jack, a short question, but possibly a longish answer because what does a typical shift look like, what is typical in JRU? How can you badge that?

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Well, the caveat to that is there is no typical shift.

PC Martyn Walker – Right, let's move on to the next question, that was a really simple question, no but you know what I mean it’s like …. [laughing].

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yeah, there is no typical shift, because it is so sort of off the cuff almost so, you sign on at the start of the day, we'll sign on, we'll book on solely, so I'll book on to the police control room, Alex will book on with his control room, and from that moment of hitting sign-on or talking and saying that that we're on duty, 99% of the time we get a job straight away, and that could be anywhere, that could be the lengths and breadths of the county. There are no hard borders as such, and we could go to anything, and on the way to that job we could get stood down, and get sent to a C1, and as you've, as you've alluded to already, it's a complete change of mindset so, we could be going to an assault, we could be potentially first at scene of a mass brawl somewhere, and you know we're thinking about each other's safety. I would always say that the police officer, we always look to protect the paramedic, but also, I've noticed that paramedics also then try and protect us as well, best they can. [Nodding]

PC Martyn Walker – Some of the episodes showed that didn't they, where they work as one.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – You've got to look after your colleague, and we're very clear with the team that we don't have the training or the equipment or the skills to be able to deal with aggressive, volatile people, that's not our bag, we're there to patch them up and look after anybody that's hurt, but, by the nature of JRU you're working closely with a colleague and sort of human instinct, you do look out for each other and if you see something that’s not quite right, you have a quiet word and go ‘I think that's something wrong over there’ type thing, and yeah, you're always looking out for everyone on scene just as same both agencies are.

PC Martyn Walker – and something you hit on isn't it, and that's something I said earlier, I have all the kit on and that, but when you've actually helped someone, or saved a life, or made a difference, what is making the difference, isn't it, and that's kind of the way you're at, you've done that, you've both.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yeah.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – We did it together as well on one of the episodes.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah, that must have been a really like, a pivotal moment for you because you still, you hadn't started for the…

Special Constable Jack Mottram – No, I hadn't started in the ambulance service.

PC Martyn Walker – So, still standalone, volunteer special constable, that must have really felt…

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yeah, it was it was. The only way I can put it was it's an odd feeling. I know that feeling now because it's happened a couple of times since, but yeah I remember that day quite well we were, we were just finishing some food, after we’d had quite a busy day so we were trying to scoff down some food, and there was a C1 at a train station, and we were auto allocated on it so, we were the nearest resource to go. Alex was on an ambulance and we both got auto allocated to this job.

PC Martyn Walker – So you all arrived on the scene.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – We literally all arrived on the scene at exactly the same time, it just couldn't have been planned any better, we had a run time of probably a minute at max, and we walked down into the train station and there was a member of the public doing CPR on somebody who'd had a cardiac arrest in the train station.

So jumped straight onto the chest, did CPR whilst all the sort of paramedics were doing their thing, at the time had no idea what it was really that they were doing, and then very quickly we got, we got him back which was great. I remember we then took him to another location to meet the air ambulance and he was flown to London, and then a couple of months later we got an email to say that he survived and we met him afterwards, and that was the first time I'd ever met somebody that had had a cardiac arrest, and for all intents and purposes had died and we'd got him back, and I remember just kind of being at that, at the ambulance station where we met him, just sort of took one look at him and I’ve never experienced this feeling before, never expected to sort of feel the emotions that I did, and I don't think that, had I have not done the JRU, started working on the JRU, I don't think I'd ever experienced that feeling and I would never have got the bug to do the job that I do today.

PC Martyn Walker – Because you would have been out as a police officer, volunteer special constable, but then it opens doesn't it, opens up these doors or these call types, and them experiences which leads us nicely onto this next question for yourself Alex, how does working together improve outcomes?

So, outcomes here, your outcomes you have less paperwork in the first place, I'm just putting that out there, yes.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yeah that's always a contentious point [inaudible].

PC Martyn Walker – I can't believe how much I'm writing and then he was ‘dealt with this’.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Sadly, well sadly for you guys, but not for us, once we finish with a patient and we've passed their care over to someone else or taken them to the hospital, that's kind of our involvement done, whereas for police it's not quite that simple, but so how does JRU improve outcomes, I think that's really quite a big question to answer.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah it is.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – We can talk about all the data and the statistics that we can pull, that shows that we get to patients and victims of crime quicker. We deal with those jobs quicker, we send less people to hospital than perhaps a traditional ambulance response would do because of the the paramedics we're putting on JRU are more experienced working in those types of environments so, all of that's quite sort of easy to demonstrate, but sometimes it's the benefits that you can't measure and some of the success stories and patient stories that actually we, I think need to use as of the improving outcomes and I think from an organisational point of view, we've all got a legal duty as emergency services to work together and to collaborate and that's under a set of principles called JESSIP, which is how agencies work together on big and large co-incidents, but also little incidents as well, and there's actual sort of legal bills and that mandate that services have to engage and work together, so this is a prime example of us being able to demonstrate we do that, and I think in terms of improving outcomes we, just some of the stories that we come across, and one springs to mind of a lady I went to, and she was a victim of quite horrific domestic violence and she'd been assaulted that evening and, we attended, and supported another police patrol that were on scene and they arrived at about the same sort of time as us, and the offender wasn't there anymore he'd left and she was scared and really, really quite petrified and had some quite significant injuries as well, and just being able to all arrive to her in a very timely fashion and know that actually as a paramedic, I have no need to be concerned really about being unsafe in that scene and will he might return, and actually am I able to go in and treat her and to start caring for her, and then for the police to actually in a really timely fashion, start that evidence capture and getting details and trying to locate the offender which within about 20, 25 minutes of us being there they'd got the location of where he currently was, and they went and arrested him, and she just to sort of look on her face of relief when we were able to actually say to her ‘look, he's been arrested and she's safe’ really was yeah really, really rewarding and I don't think that her care and that her involvement with the police on that night would have been that seamless or that concise and have that continuity of care, if it wasn't for the JRU going, it would have been a little bit more broken and she potentially would have been waiting a bit longer for the ambulance or, longer for police or whatever that might be but actually that was a perfect job that we could go and really make a difference to somebody that evening. So, I think in terms of improving outcomes, that's sort of, the stories are really key and the difference I guess that the JRU makes are sort of shown with them.

PC Martyn Walker – You're right what you're saying and that and we know this don't we, protracted, you might have had yes of course police will going to go, of course ambulance are going to go, one of us is going to get there quicker.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – but we're both going to be going ‘where's the ambulance’ and you'll be going ‘well where's the police’.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – Well actually we're here, we've got some real time updates, let's get this offender. Medically we can start dealing here, we're not going to be having to go to the, it's that quick, approach isn't it and it must have reassured her.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah, absolutely it must have been reassuring and you could see in her face it was, but it's also the benefits of not even the patients we go to see that actually because we're working together and we're sat in the same vehicle, actually sometimes communication from control room to control room can be a little bit broken, it's sort of over the phone or radio, they're not face to face, they're in different buildings, in different parts of Kent, and sometimes we help bridge that gap and actually if we've seen a sudden spike of calls in a particular area for a lot of assaults or something, that's information we can really quickly pass back to police, and equally if police have got information that one of the calls we're responding to actually might not be as safe as we thought it was, then we can notify our control room and crews and we also can give advice to crews as well so, certain jobs where potentially patients are being aggressive or quite difficult to sort of manage and to help, actually is there a need for police to come, it could be that there isn't any for police if they're making a decision to be a difficult individual and to not engage with the ambulance service, then actually they may have capacity and be able to make that decision so, we can help talk perhaps more junior ambulance crews or ambulance crews at the scene and encounter these types of presentations a lot less through some sort of support remotely as well, which is really quite rewarding and beneficial.

PC Martyn Walker – That's interesting then, so what that you hit upon and I know Jack was sort of nodding there as well is, the vehicle comes a bit of a hub doesn't it, because yes you're going to be outwardly responding to the calls, but where you're seeing the calls you can tactically advise either side can't you, and that goes for the police as well don't it, and you'll say to a dispatcher ‘well ambulance are on the way’ and all that, like you're saying tactical advice, so that's another spin-off of the work of the JRU isn't it.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely.

PC Martyn Walker – Physical entity of the car going there, the crewings, but the meeting of the minds if you like in there. Yeah, interesting, isn't it so, you and you’ll have called up our dispatch and said ‘yeah’ and they've gone all [inaudible].

Special Constable Jack Mottram – There might be a job on the box as we call it, job on the stack, that there's already a car, police car with officers waiting on scene for an ambulance and they might, you know call us up and say ‘oh could you attend because SECAmbs demand's quite high?’ so we’ll have a look at the CAD, I will tell Alex, he'll have a look and go ‘oh actually there's an ambulance on the way to them already and they're about two minutes away’.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Because you can see on the CAD exactly where they are. We can advise them, we can tell them actually, yes we can go and deal with it, but actually you're going to get the response anyway in a shorter time than we're going to get to you, take over, deal with it and then we can we can go on to the next one.

PC Martyn Walker – So for and I'm sure there will be because it's us, I'm just putting out there guys, the meaning of CAD for us is control and dispatch, it's our central control. We’re nightmares for terminology aren’t we.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – and I've noticed when you're talking, have you noticed you talk a little bit policey now.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Probably yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – I’m just saying, I can hear it [laughing], its happening.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – It's interesting you spend a lot of time with people from other agency and we all love our three-letter acronyms and yeah, it probably doesn't make much sense to other people but then when I first started working, sort of with JRU, and you hear all sort of the police like state 9, state 5, state this…

Special Constable Jack Mottram – State codes, yes.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – It blows your mind a little bit.

PC Martyn Walker – I’m hearing it [laughing].

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – You said about the car being a hub, it really is a hub of activity because, we have our radios and airwave networks, and then you've got police radios going off as well. You've got our data terminal them sort of ringing and making noises, and mobile phones ringing for people wanting stuff, so at times it's quite overwhelming because we are quite busy, and people s requesting us left right centre.

PC Martyn Walker – Mentally draining.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – We do have to sometimes just say there is only one or two of us on duty, and quite often we work the control rooms to prioritise jobs as well. Especially some of our lower priority ambulance calls that perhaps wouldn't generate a sort of a blue light emergency response within sort of, within sort of 20 minutes that higher priority calls would, we can actually start outlining which ones we're going to go and actually do them in sort of order of severity and where we are based on location to highlight calls that are suitable and to almost hold them for us and we'll go to them as soon as we can.

PC Martyn Walker – So question for both of you, I don't know who wants to go with this one. What motivates you to continue this demanding and unique work?

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Well, I think based on everything we've said, is that just wanting to help people, wanting to provide the best service, and we are the only resource like it in the country that has successfully managed to implement and run this type of unit. There's an element of…

PC Martyn Walker – Pride.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yeah, pride, and we've managed to make it work when some haven’t, and we continue to make it work every day.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah, and it's growing, it's evolving [inaudible]. We hit upon it earlier, you're getting a knock of doors, other agencies, other people are pricking their ears up to looking at this now [laughing].

Go on you’re not getting out of answering this question, by the way, it said both on my cue list.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Everything Jack said really. I think yeah there is definitely an element of pride knowing that we do what we do, and it is quite unique.

I think being able to manage the paramedic staff that work on it as well is really rewarding. I think that job variety and mixing things up for paramedics is really important, gone are the days in the ambulance service where we just respond to sort of life and death emergency calls, we're an urgent and emergency care service now so, we deal with a lot more urgent care, primary care related stuff, and that's just because of the way the NHS is now and especially since Covid and obviously as an ambulance service we also operate the 111 call service as well so, a lot of our incidents we respond to now as an ambulance service are lower acuity, so less unwell patients, and so actually mixing that up sometimes and giving paramedics different opportunities to, work in a slightly different way but essentially going to the same jobs they might go to in an ambulance, but putting them in a different environment where they can learn new things, and utilise new skills is really, really rewarding and seeing sort of their love and enjoyment of the job, yeah means a lot, it's really nice to see and I think, just the building and continually sort of managing that relationship with Kent Police as well, is really exciting and I think that there's so much more that could be done for agencies to work together jointly, beyond just working in the same vehicle actually, control rooms working together more closely and, joint training and sort of CPD events and stuff which we do run as well so, I think there's yeah, a huge plethora of opportunities that are sort of yet to be tapped and we've been doing it for six years so, it's exciting to see what else the future holds.

PC Martyn Walker – And let’s not make no bones about it, I know, I both know you personally, but you two are drivers, your nucleus of it, you’re passionate about it, you give a lot time to it, it's a big part of your lives and I know how hard you work.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – It's a team effort, it definitely is a team effort and it's not just me and Jack, there's a whole host of people that…

PC Martyn Walker – I know there is.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Should be eh… should be…

PC Martyn Walker – But let's put it on record. I know how hard you work; I know, both of you. I know this is a team, but that team is, it's got to have that centred, it needs that guidance, that support, that making the decisions, you know, so, but you, he does play it down don’t he, I love trying to make him red, but you are, you've been it, we've been both been in it from the beginning, I think that's the key isn't it.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – It really helps as well that we have, having met, I only met Alex through the ambulance service, didn't know him before I was in the police, before the ambulance service and we've become friends outside of work, we're very close friends outside of work as well.

PC Martyn Walker – So, Alex you've hit upon an incident that domestic one, is there any other incidents JRU usually attend, you mentioned RTCs the mental health, is there anything else that you want to elaborate on?

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah, so I think Jack’s obviously mentioned some of them with the category one calls, in the grand scheme of things the category one, auto allocations we call them so, if we're the closest to a category one call we'll be automatically sent by the computer dispatch system, that's quite a low percentage of what we do in the grand scheme of things so, we do get them, there will be sort of some probably every shift, but, we do our top call categories as it were that we go to are road traffic collisions, some of them very minor, some of them more serious, sometimes it's just us going checking people over, advising some self-care steps to sort of, stiff necks and backs and aches and pains and stuff, and sort of ruling out anything more sinister at scene, and then police can actually do the investigation side of things, and breathalyse people that need to be and file sort of investigations for sort of looking up later on, and then also the more severe RTCs where perhaps people have got quite significant injuries, we can sometimes get there fairly quickly, and we're used to working with all the agencies on scene as well, so we can actually, sort of utilise everyone on scene to help us and help that patient, so, RTCs are really good.

Another sort of sad part of the job, but also very rewarding at times, is sudden deaths so people that have died in the community and perhaps it's unexpected or unexplained, there is a duty for both agencies to attend those calls because as a clinician we have to verify that that person is sort of beyond all help sadly, and then police obviously have to file a report for the coroner, so actually we can arrive at those jobs together in one team, and instead of asking my questions and then 30, 40 minutes later police turning up and asking exactly the same questions again, or very similar ones, we can do it all in one go which makes it just a much nicer experience under quite horrible circumstances for loved ones.

PC Martyn Walker – and you're right, empathy, massive…

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – When people have lost loved ones, and it's about talking to people, and just that simple duplication isn't it.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely, it's just yeah, asking people repetitive questions when they've already sort of given the answer, they don't understand it sometimes, they don't understand that we need different information, so yeah it's more of a joined up approach is really key, and then obviously we've alluded to some, but some assaults, some domestic violence calls, people where they've sort of sustained any traumatic injuries in a public place, a lot of drunken incidents, people perhaps intoxicated, been in a fight or hurt them themselves on the High Street on a Friday night, and then we also do a lot of mental health related calls as well, and we're very clear that we're not a mental health resource.

Mental health is very much a health issue, it's not a police issue, but, sadly by the nature of some mental health presentations there is a need for police, whether that be that they're sort of in immediate danger to themselves or anyone else, police have sort of legal powers that can help people.

PC Martyn Walker – and when you're in crisis…

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Or in crisis and perhaps yeah not aware of what they're doing, or putting them themselves in danger really, there is a need for police so we do respond to them.

PC Martyn Walker – Can we just, so with the mental health, the car turns up and I've been a couple of these, and you know yourself when you're just as a police officer how time-consuming mental health can be for us.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – It absolutely can be, yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – So, we'd go, wouldn't we go ‘I need an ambulance, we need…’ but, you go, you can make some real good decisions around the person, get the welfare, get the wraparound done in, get the referrals, if they need an onward, if they are going to be going to a place of, it's about resilience, it's about decisions and speed, and they can be made really quickly.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely.

PC Martyn Walker – I think that's a massive win for JRU.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Well we love in the ambulance service, shared decision making. So, we don't want an ambulance person in green going out and just making a decision there and then with no involvement from anyone else, because that's when things can perhaps be forgotten, or patients come to harm, so actually the fact that we can work with a completely different agency, and they have access to their referral pathways, so police officers have slightly different mental health pathways than we do, and we've got access to some as well, actually the combining both of those options together from both agencies, with some very complex sort of cases sometimes, to try and navigate them to the best solution, that evening, it is a real benefit sometimes, but we're very cautious we don't want to criminalise mental health and that's why sometimes JRU is not appropriate to go to, because it is a health-based issue and the last thing that sometimes they want to see is a is a police officer turn up, so we have to play that one very carefully.

PC Martyn Walker – Tactfully.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely.

PC Martyn Walker – but, a massive win for the vulnerability.

You gave us a great example earlier about the domestic, you'll have lots, you'll have your own books, your own memoirs right, but, can you give us an example of a call, JRU call you’ve attended, what happened and why, what makes it stick out for you, you know.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – So, I think one call that springs to mind, and it's the JRU were involved with and in a way not directly to start with but, it was quite late at night and one of the team was with a police officer and they were allocated a category one call for a cardiac arrest, and all it said was an adult female with CPR in progress.

Some of those jobs we get very little information because everyone on scene is quite panicked and not really listening to the call taker at times because they’re going through the worst possible moment of their life, and the JRU was the closest available resource from the ambulance service, but the weather was quite bad, and there was a lot of fog, and so the driving conditions were really poor and it was in the middle of nowhere this patient's address, so I think the JRU were sort of around 15, 20 minutes away still which is not ideal when obviously responding to a C1 call. So, through the police officer working on the car they called up to the police control room and essentially said is there any police medics nearby, that would be able to respond, and are closer than 15, 20 minutes away, and as luck would have it there was a Firearms Unit literally about five, six minutes around the corner from where this this patient was, so they self, sort of mobilised to it, and after we sort of gave them the details, they arrived and started really early CPR, got a defibrillator on the patient, shocked her, and by the time the JRU arrived sort of 10, 15 minutes later they were in in what we call ROS ‘return of spontaneous circulation’, so their heart was beating, and they were starting to breathe for themselves.

So, actually the sort of the, those firearms officers saved someone's life and if it wasn't for JRU that's not something we would routinely do by calling police to say ‘have you got anyone nearby?’.

PC Martyn Walker – No, and they gone back to the hub isn't it.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Exactly.

PC Martyn Walker – That time, of that communication, just by a little simple action.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely, yeah something that took for the car sort of 20 seconds to do, actually saved somebody's life so, yeah that's a really sort of notable story that sticks in my mind and the team and the paramedic and police officer involved in that one, sort of did exceptionally well to actually even think of that as an option because, at the end of day they’re still only human and they're probably still trying to mentally prepare what they're going to, and not only prepare what they're going to do when they get to scene, they're focusing on the road and the driving conditions and any hazards that are coming at them while they're driving, so they're processing a lot, and then to still have the bandwidth to be able to go ‘oh, let’s see if someone else is nearby’ which is something we wouldn't normally do, yeah it was incredible. So, they, everyone involved in that truly did save someone's life.

PC Martyn Walker – and that's what I love about JRU, it's simplicity.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely.

PC Martyn Walker – which makes it happen.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – Is there anything that comes to mind for your good self?

Special Constable Jack Mottram – There are lots, and it's quite difficult to narrow down one, but there ultimately the more I think about it there is only one that sticks with me, and I was very, very young, very young in service, very new in service.

JRU was fairly new, we had our new Skodas and they had not many miles on the clock, that's, so that's how I know it was quite a while ago, and we were sent, booked on, and we were sent to an RTC, and we started to read the notes and it just didn't sound very nice. RTC car versus pedestrian out walking dog, and we arrived and he was very, very badly injured, the air ambulance arrived, lots more sort of ambulance resources arrived, and sort of within ten minutes it was just that, that sort of sea of blue everywhere.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – He had gone out to walk his dog before his dinner, and he got unfortunately hit by a drunk driver, and he died as a result of his injuries.

PC Martyn Walker – So high trauma.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – High trauma, yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – Dog?

Special Constable Jack Mottram – The dog survived.

PC Martyn Walker – Okay.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – and the dog plays the dog plays a part in this. So, we didn't we didn't know who he was and we've put a road closure on, and a chap comes running sort of into the scene as such, and there's a couple of police officers that are sort of startled by it, because it's not the sort of scene that you'd expect sort of people to run through, and he sees the dog and it turned out to be the son of the person who had died, and it I don't quite know how it come about, but I ended up being the person who sort of spoke to him and stayed with him for a while, and I had to confirm to him that that was his dad that had passed away, and it was really weird being a, what was I at the time, a 19, 20 year old very, very young, very sort of not had didn't have a great deal of life experience talking to a fully grown man, and telling them that unfortunately that his dad had passed away, and as far as he was aware his dad had just gone out to walk a dog, and he wasn't coming back for dinner that was that was being cooked, and it was a really surreal moment, and I just remember he at the end of, at the end of the night I had to, so we took him back to his house and he asked me to tell his mum so, the deceased chap's wife, and I just remember afterwards we walked out, I walked up his drive to get into my car, and he just shook my hand and he sort of broke down in tears and he just gave me the biggest cuddle, and just thanked me, and I've never met him since, and I've heard you know the chap was prosecuted for drink driving, rightly so, death by dangerous driving.

It's just one that sticks with me forever, because I just never expected on that day to have to sort of, talk to somebody and deliver the horrible news that I did, and build a relationship and just hoped that, the way he found out wasn't how we would like somebody to find out by any means, we would never like somebody come running to the scene, but because it was so close to where he lived, he saw the blue lights, he then then saw his dad's dog, and you would immediately assume something's happened, and unfortunately on that occasion, it had.

PC Martyn Walker – So, it makes you grow as a person as well doesn't it.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Absolutely, and it stuck with me forever and I don't think, I will ever forget sort of that moment of realisation where it was.

PC Martyn Walker – It's because we're human, and that's kind of where we're at. We've all got roles, we all wear different uniforms, beneath all that we've all got families, friends and…[inaudible].

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – I guess for me, how do you train somebody to do that and break that news, you can’t really.

PC Martyn Walker – No.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – You cover it in training and actually having difficult conversations, but, if someone comes running at you, yeah basically asking is that their dad that's died, like how do you deal with that, you have to just, go with it and follow your instincts and be a compassionate individual and yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – and then the procedures oh we're going to do it, but then you've got to you deal with that and it's the cards you’re dealt.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah. I think another interesting story that stays with me from JRU is, one we talked about the other day, but it was a couple of years ago where a guy, we got a call for in the middle of the depths of Kent in this little village somewhere for an elderly chap in the back of a London cab, which again is unusual in the depths of Kent being in a black cab, and he apparently was a bit confused and lost and didn't know where he was, that's all we knew, and the call for some reason had come in to both organisations; SECAmb and police, so we responded to it, and myself and my police officer I was working with, were met with a chap that apparently had got a one-way ticket over from Australia that morning to Heathrow, got into a cab and said to take him to this village because he was going to surprise his family for Christmas and he didn't perhaps have the best relationship with his family, and he was quite a vulnerable individual, sort of in mid to late 80s, and he got to this village and just thought he would know where his family lived, but got there and quickly realised he didn't know where they were and so he was knocking on someone's house, and this this poor lady..

PC Martyn Walker – Hence the call.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah, and this poor lady had lived there for 50 years, and said he didn't she didn't know who he was. So, we were left with this sort of Australian chap in the back of a London taxi with the meter still running, not really sure what to do with him, and although he was vulnerable there was nothing really medically wrong with him, he didn't have any of his medications with him, which was a bit of a concern, but this job took a good couple of hours to sort and police were doing searches on their records and databases for this individual, and the family members, and nothing was coming up. We looked on any sort of health-based records if we could find anyone, nothing was coming up, and in the end after a good bit of sort of detective work, we thought to search one of the sons’ names on social media and found him linked to a business. Called the business up, and it happened to be his son, and then had to break the news that his yeah elderly father had got a one-way ticket from Australia to surprise him for Christmas and this was about three days beforehand, and he was a little bit shocked to say the least, but managed to eventually reunite him to his family and get some repeat prescriptions sorted, and then it then later turned out that he would basically escaped a care home in Australia and he was reported missing by the Australian authority, so yeah, it was a bit of an international rescue job and had to yeah notify the Australian authorities and safeguard him here in the UK and yeah I'm presuming he made it back to Australia safe and sound in the end.

PC Martyn Walker – What's coming out through that, is, police we would have done a, b and c but actually that night he got d, e and f. You're just telling me you sorted prescriptions out, and stabilised him and that it, that joint working again, isn't it database of the things so, but it's interesting the stories you put, are about the personal things the, you know, what can we say, you don't know what you're going to go to do you.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – No, you don't, you don't.

PC Martyn Walker – So JRU is a bespoke product isn't it, it's a bespoke entity, how do you train, how do we train people to come into this unique environment?

Special Constable Jack Mottram – So first and foremost, we're trained as a police officer. So as a special constable, back in 2018 I did a modular course, where I spent lots of weekends learning the very basics of policing law, passing exams, did my officer safety training and then joined, did a portfolio, gained my independence and then started working on the JRU.

Some of the extra training that I've done. I've done my Taser course. I've been very fortunate to be one of, I think I was the second cohort of of Kent specials who were put on onto a Taser course.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – I've done my public order courses, my method of entry courses, which all combined, help in terms of working on the JRU. So, we've got that Taser, should it be required, we've got method of entry, we carry the big red key and hooly bars and all sorts on.

PC Martyn Walker – So, it's like a knowledge tool kit.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – of which you have the tools.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – Within that fleet.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Yeah, when I started doing some JRU shifts, training wise for us, it was it was quite a simple, a simple transition, it was this is the car, it's not a police car and it's not an ambulance, it's a mixture of both it was a kit familiarisation from the ambulance service point of view. So, we opened up all the bags and just become familiar with that blue bag is that and that big computer screen looking device that I was like this looks like something out of the 2000s, that's the defibrillator and the life pack, so when, if Alex would be on scene on his own with me and he could say ‘could you go to the car and get me X bag’ and I would be able to do that. That was really it in terms of familiarisation, and it was a familiarisation, it wasn't a training course to get onto it, it was sort of go out and understand it, because as we've alluded to we can't even sort of explain how.

PC Martyn Walker – but it was a pilot wasn't it, yeah so how can you teach something that's new, so that was the standing point. So, how's that evolved then, and what does it look like now?

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – So, now for the paramedic team, we go through an assessment process, so it is people who apply for it we have the paramedics working full-time on JRU and they do it as a secondment, so it's 18 month secondments now. So the purpose of that is to give, the interest is very high and we've only got a small number of positions based on the sort of number of cars we operate a day, so we want to try and give everyone an opportunity, so we do it on a secondment basis, and they'll go through an assessment process, and once they have been successful, we sort of have an induction day where we essentially cover all of the policies and procedures, that are relevant to JRU. Sort of an overview of really everything we've talked about today, what JRU is about, what we expect of the paramedics working on it, what they can expect from police, and then we do some sort of quite specific training with them, so we cover things around sort of conflict resolution, they spend a day down at the Police College doing sort of an abridged OST (officer safety training) day, with the safety instructors to sort of, be a bit more comfortable and familiar around sort of working with police when perhaps a Taser has been drawn, what to do, or PAVA or actually if you've got someone kicking off and your officer is in danger, or the paramedic needs to exit a scene quite quickly, what sort of techniques they can use, and then we cover sort of some more in-depth clinical conditions.

So, we spend a lot of time going over mental health and mental capacity assessments, we have some guest speakers that come in sort of mental health professionals to help deliver that, We cover things around sort of acute behavioural disturbance and drug use, we encounter quite a few people that are under the influence of drugs and how that affects different people, based on what drugs they've taken, and then some stuff around sort of major incidents response as well. The JRU quite often go to large scale scenes where there's perhaps lots of agencies on scene, and sometimes they might be the first resource there, so which has been the case in a couple of significant incidents in Kent actually, so we go over how, what they need to do when they're first on scene really, how they take command of that incident and sort of those very early steps they need to follow to basically get the most out of that incident and trying to help the most number of people, and then we operate, sort of throughout the year, joint with police.

We do a large number of CPD and training events, so we some of them might be over Teams and some of them are on police topics, some of them might be on more ambulance topics, but it's all stuff that's relevant and interesting to both organisations and then we, for the last few years have organised a yearly conference, where last year we had about 100 people come from lots of different agencies, not just police and ambulance the fire service, Coast Guard, RNLI, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, so a wide range of emergency services, and it's just a time for everyone to meet, network, go over some sort of interesting guest speakers and to just yeah try and encourage more joint working really.

PC Martyn Walker – Yeah and I recall that, and one of the things you've introduced and it's about looking out you, for your yourselves, TRIM (Trauma Risk Incident Management), peer support, welfare, so you have the traumatic dealing with trauma looking after your mentally and physically don't we, and the organisations do recognise that, both of them.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah, and both organisations in terms of TRIM work together quite well, so quite often we've received notifications from the police Wellbeing Team that they'd be made aware paramedic attended this incident on JRU and just to make sure we're aware of it, and vice versa, we pass any sort of incidents that the team go to back to police as well so, we constantly look out for the types of jobs they're going to and we have regular welfare meetings with all of the team, and we do something every month called debriefing donuts with the paramedic team, where we come in and debrief some jobs and talk through stuff and yeah it's just a, just a…..

PC Martyn Walker – You said earlier, we're a big family we got to look out for each other.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Absolutely, yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – and internally you've got to, because of the type of things you're going to, like the high energy, the trauma.

What are some of challenges you face in terms, we've sort of struck upon it of balancing law enforcement and providing emergency medical care. The old juggling act isn't it, and we mentioned it, the bags, the helping.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – So, I think, yes it can be a real challenge. So, in the there and then on scenes, and at incidents sometimes it's a bit of a challenge, so sometimes people don't realise we're a paramedic, so actually we arrive with some other police officers and they just see us as police, so we need to very quickly make sure that they know that we're with the ambulance service we are a paramedic, we're there to help them, and that usually helps quite a bit.

On the other hand as well, sometimes police obviously don't, well police aren't liked by everyone, some people that perhaps engage in some naughty behaviour and perhaps aren't model citizens, let’s say, don't like the police, and that sometimes puts the police in danger, so we need to be very careful that we're, sort of, we make it clear that we are, and we're ambulance crew, but actually sometimes the fact that a police officer arrived with us, that can really help diffuse a situation, because we sometimes might go in and lead on that job and just say, I've got Jack here he's a police officer we're working together today, and instantly they're like oh we must be all right and he's working with the ambulance service, so that really does help, so that's one of the main challenges, we just need to be aware of, and then the next part is around, you briefly touched on it, evidence capture and actually helping people, obviously life comes first so we sometimes have to disrupt evidence to save people's lives, but actually because the team are used to working in those environments there's things that we can do to help preserve scenes as much as we can and still save lives.

PC Martyn Walker – They're quite savvy aren't they, they're quite switched on with it.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah, yeah and I think lastly, the sort of challenge from I guess my point of view, and sort of running the team is, we have to navigate two different organisations so we're navigating our policies and procedures and then we're navigating police policies and procedures and so yeah, sometimes we come across things and we're like ‘oh I'm not sure how we deal with that’ and it takes a bit of discussion and navigating through different people within the organisations to come up with an answer, which is brilliant because it's a collaborative approach, but it does sometimes take a little bit longer, but still nevertheless we get to the sort of right solution in the end so..

PC Martyn Walker – and that's what you pioneer, that's what I was going on about earlier, you take things from the street work, feed it to the leaders, and things evolve. So, it does actually break down sometimes barriers and builds public confidence doesn't it.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Definitely. I've walked into jobs before, they've seen me in my police uniform and they've, you know, they've reacted badly, don't want to know, ‘I'm not engaging, what are you doing here, I didn't phone you’ and that very simple, very calm conversation of we work together, and we can point to the car because it quite clearly says Joint Response Unit on the side of it, and then it's just sort of like a click of the fingers and they go ‘oh okay, well they must not be as bad and they're not here to catch me out’.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – And we get a lot of interest as well, on the rare occasions where we're not allocated to an incident, if there's no calls outstanding on either side then we'll go out and do some proactive sort of engagement and whether that be sit on a High Street and sort of actually just be a visible policing presence, but you have people come over and knock on the window and go ‘what's all this about’ and they don't see it before, and yeah we get talking to the public and it's been good for the ambulance service to do that sort of level of public engagement and great for police and building relationships with the community so.

PC Martyn Walker – I know when I used to go out in the car as well, you could see people used to, the brand the Joint Response Unit brand is now part of the tapestry of Kent [laughing] and people actually do wave and say ‘hello’ so it's becoming part of it.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – It used to be double take, you’d drive past, and they'd have a double take and they just, they couldn't work it out, but now it's a lot more people recognise it, and we get waves from everyone.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – Oh brilliant, well thanks for your time. I've got no more questions, times crept up but then I have interviewed two people.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – You have, yeah.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Very true.

PC Martyn Walker – That's my argument, I've put two people [inaudible]

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Can I say you’ve done a marvellous job as well, on your first podcast so thank you for having us.

PC Martyn Walker – Well let’s see how I got on. No thanks for having me lads, it's been brilliant, but I think what's made it nice for me is that I've been out in the car, and I kind of get it.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Yeah.

PC Martyn Walker – So, I'm not, I’m a lay person to a degree, but not so, there you go, thank you.

Special Constable Jack Mottram – Thank you.

Alex Wilson, South East Coast Ambulance Service – Thank you for having us.

PC Martyn Walker – So, if you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to follow us on Instagram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. We will be posting previews of all our upcoming episodes, and you can watch this episode on our YouTube channel and find out more about the variety of opportunities available by searching Kent Police careers. See you soon. [Music].