A HIGH Wycombe volunteer has spoken out about their decision to step up and help support the ambulance service.

A team of more than 30 military personnel have signed up to support South Central Ambulance Service as it faces shortages due to workers isolating with Covid.

Warrant Officer Alex Bedborough, of RAF Digital at Air Command HQ in High Wycombe, said he had been volunteering twice a week for 16 years.

He said: “You get a great amount of satisfaction from helping others, seeing the relief on a patient’s face, seeing the difference from when you arrive and when you leave, it’s a great deal of job satisfaction.”

Describing the change during the pandemic, he said: “The amount of jobs and the tempo has been very different for the last two years, you used to get a break in between jobs but for the last two years it’s absolutely constant, you book on at start of shift and you won’t stop until the end of it.

“They are really, really busy. We have been stacking ambulances 12 or 13 deep at times (at hospitals) which has prevented us from being out on the road, the whole NHS is incredibly busy.

“For the regular NHS its tiring for them, it’s exhausting, I would compare it to us being on deployment which is normally six months when you work at a high tempo and they have been doing it for four times that now over two years.”