Staffordshire communities are offered free life-saving bleed control kits

Paramedic Kyle Raffo and his colleague Bradley Sadat-Shafai have developed the revolutionary new kits, which can mean the difference between life and death in the first few minutes after injury.

They want them to be available in every community in the country amid record figures for knife-related homicides. Latest ONS figures revealed knife-related homicides in England and Wales reached 282 between April 21 and March 22, the highest on record.

Similar in concept to defibrillator machines, which are now accessible on high streets, at businesses, attractions and other venues, the kits are designed to be used by members of the community if someone suffers a knife wound or other traumatic bleed injury.

At the same time, free training is available on their MERE Supplies Ltd website. The duo want as many people as possible to undertake the training to create an ‘army’ of trained bleed control first aiders. They’ve set themselves the goal of training 10,000 people in the first 12 months.

Between them, Kyle and Bradley have more than a decade of frontline 999 experience in which they have witnessed countless deaths as a result of blood loss from traumatic injuries – and have had to deliver the worst news to relatives.

They feel deaths can be prevented by local communities having access to the right equipment and skills needed to save a life in those first few minutes after injury, while waiting for help to arrive.

The pair previously set up MERE Supplies to revolutionise first aid treatment and have now launched the HALT campaign with the aim of getting as many bleed control kits out into the community as possible.

To support the HALT campaign, Kyle and Bradley are offering to donate up to 100 bleed control kits to appropriate not-for-profit community locations across the country.

Kyle, who appeared in several series of Channel 4’s fly-on-the-wall documentary 999: On the Front Line, said: “After a decade serving the NHS on the frontline in Birmingham, I’ve seen the rise in deaths due to stab wounds and other serious traumatic bleed injuries.

“We’ve also seen the impact of the increase in waiting times for an ambulance. At the same time, most readily available basic first aid kits are not fit for purpose.

“We’ve watched people die in front of us because we couldn’t get there any sooner and yet for the sake of a simple piece of kit that costs probably less than a family trip to the cinema, a life could be saved.

“Every minute can be one too many in the case of a catastrophic haemorrhage, without the right type of first aid, such as a tourniquet, being applied as quickly as possible.

“We have created our bleed control kits based on our years of medical experience, with each item carefully selected as the most reliable, the most effective and the easiest to use.

“We want these kits to be rolled out into the community, into schools, workplaces, community centres, on street corners and in people’s cars and homes, so there is always one within easy reach should someone suffer a serious injury.

“We know that knife crime is a significant cause of this sort of traumatic injury, particularly among young people, and we want to help prevent these terrible, mindless deaths.

“Obviously there’s a bigger issue to be addressed in terms of tackling the causes of knife crime, but in the short term, one thing we know we can do straight away is use our experience to have an immediate impact on the victims of this sort of crime.

“Our kits are also for people suffering any major bleed trauma, which could be a road accident, an agricultural incident, or an accident at work or home.”

More information on the kits is available at meresupplies.co.uk/bleedcontrol.