Newcastleton Community First Responders

Who we are

The village of Newcastleton lies about 20 miles north of Carlisle just over the border into Scotland in the Liddesdale valley.It has a population of approximately 1600 people and covers over 400 square miles of rough border land.

In 2006 a local group, The Ladies of Liddesdale  Amenities Group, (LLAGS) called an open meeting  in the village to discuss the closure of the Newcastleton Health Centre at evenings and weekend and the loss of an ambulance. A new group emerged and became Newcastleton Community First Responders. 

 Chairperson - K Needham, Secretary -  J Edington, Treasurer - E Atkinson. The committee  K Skelton, S Armstrong, P Elliot, P Cetoloni and M Hext.

S.A.S. came on board and after training we now have 15 responders who work in pairs and cover evenings, weekends and bank holidays.

We started running in April 2007, 18 months after the first meeting, and cover about ten miles from Kershopefoot in the south to Hermitage School in the north and Saughtree in the east. we can not cover the whole area as we need more responders in the Hermitage area.

We operate between Lothian and Borders Ambulance Service and Dumfries and Galloway Ambulance Service as all 999 calls go to Dumfries and Galloway Ambulance Call Centre and the ambulance then comes from Langholm,15 miles from Newcastleton and takes patients to Cumberland Infirmary  in Carlilse, so we have to operate in 3 counties.