Appendix Eight

BRANCH Charity

BRANCH are the community first responders trained to respond to emergency calls through the 999 system in conjunction with the South East Coast Ambulance Service.

Initially, they had been a very small group based purely around Bognor Regis and had been joint with St. John’s Ambulance. A couple of years ago, they had separated from St. John’s and grown in size which meant they were covering a huge area from East Preston to Fareham. The charity was named BRANCH, as it combines some the locations covered:

B – Bognor Regis, Barnham

R – Rustington

A – Arundel, Angmering, Aldwick

N – Nutbourne

C – Chichester, Cosham

H – Havant, Hilsea 

They are not well known and receive no funding from the Government or NHS, relying purely on public donations and fundraising. There are currently 35 volunteers working as responders and each one needs a kit worth £2000 in order to their jobs, in addition to training costs. 

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