Fifty bleed kits to be available across county

Fifty bleed kits are to be made available across Worcestershire after a donation from the county's Freemasons.

Bleed kits contain bandages, tourniquets and gloves, and are designed to provide treatment for someone suffering severe bleeding while waiting for emergency medics to arrive

They will be placed inside defibrillator cases, which are opened via codes supplied to 999 callers.

"It's the difference between life and death," said Howard Painter, a community first responder in Worcester.

The bleed kits will be put into defibrillator cases around Worcestershire

"Stabbings and knife crime [are] becoming more and more prevalent," he told BBC Hereford and Worcester.

"To know that these [kits] are around and about does give you some comfort that if anything nasty did happen, there's a chance you’re going to survive."

The first of the kits was put inside a defibrillator in Wick, near Pershore, on Monday.

Bleed control kits were introduced in the West Midlands following a campaign from Lynne Baird, whose son Daniel died in 2017 after he was stabbed in Digbeth, Birmingham.

"It's not just for stabbings, because out in the rural areas you’ve got farm accidents and all sorts of stuff like that. It’s basically for catastrophic bleeding” explained Mr Painter.

Worcestershire Freemasons donated £2,000 for the kits, which was increased to £4,000 by match-funding from Freemasons in London.

"It's nice to see that what we've given is now materialising into something which will help the community for many years to come," said Freemason David Dey.