Suffolk Accident Rescue Service is set to make a bid for funding from Hadleigh Town Council.

The amount, to be determined before next month's council meeting, will be used to help the volunteer responders fill the huge gap in donations lost due to coronavirus restrictions causing fund-raising events to be cancelled.

Sue Groom, SARS volunteer fundraiser, has written to the town council and said: "We hope that your Town Council can help us maintain our life-saving service around Suffolk.

"As you can imagine, it is a challenging environment here at SARS given the situation we find ourselves in around COVID 19. Our clinical operations have had to adapt very quickly to maintain the welfare of our volunteer clinicians and the patients they treat."

SARS provide specialist volunteer responders to assist the East of England Ambulance Service at the scenes of serious medical emergencies or trauma.

Th clinical resource consists of a network of solo responders and mobile critical care teams who can respond to incidents across Suffolk and its adjacent counties.

SARS is mobilised via the EEAST critical care desk, which monitors incoming 999 calls to the region and SARS responders, which include anaesthetists, critical care paramedics and other clinicians with enhanced prehospital skills.

These clinicians are authorised to carry specialist drugs and additional life-saving equipment not found on frontline ambulances. This means that SARS clinicians can provide an additional and advanced level of patient care that would not normally be available outside the hospital environment.

This can help save lives, reduce the chances of patients suffering permanent disability and provide relief from extreme pain. As the clinicians live locally, it also means that they can be on scene before any other medical resource - a speed of response which can be vital for time-critical patients.