St. Andrew's Ambulance Association

St Andrew's First Aid

Logo of St Andrew's First Aid
Formation	1882
Type	Charitable organisation
Headquarters	St Andrew's House, 48 Milton Street, Glasgow, G4 0HR
Location	Scotland
Membership	600
Chairman of Council	Mr Rudy Crawford
Revenue (2016)	£2.5m per annum
Website	www.firstaid.org.uk

St Andrew's First Aid is a charity based in Scotland. Founded in 1882, St Andrew's Ambulance Association was Scotland's first ambulance service. From 1967 the St. Andrew's Scottish Ambulance Service was the sole contractor for the provision of the ambulance service, until 1974 when the National Health Service was reorganised and St Andrew's ambulance role was absorbed into the Scottish Ambulance Service. The St Andrew's association continued as a provider of first aid services and training, changing their trading name.

In 1882, St Andrew's Ambulance Association was formed in Glasgow by a group of local doctors and businessmen who were concerned by the rapid increase in accidents resulting from traffic and modern machinery. First aid and casualty transportation classes were conducted and Scotland's first ambulance was bought by the Association in April 1882, which served Glasgow and the surrounding area providing first aid and transportation to hospital to accident victims. In the following years, the number of calls the Association responded to grew so as by 1886 there were six ambulances stationed in towns throughout Scotland.

In order to make teaching more uniform, in 1891 the Association published Dr George T. Beatson's Ambulance Hand-book that provided a concise overview of anatomy, physiology, injuries, first aid treatment and casualty transportation. The book remained the Association standard text for over 40 years as it was updated and republished.

At the turn of the century, the Association underwent two major changes: In 1899, a Royal Charter was granted by Queen Victoria that changed the Association from a collection of individuals to a legally recognised single entity and in 1904 the St Andrew's Ambulance Corps was formed to bring together the various ambulance groups around the country under a single administration.

Within 48 hours of war being declared, the Corps was able to entirely staff all of Scotland's military hospitals, freeing the regular staff for service. In addition to this, St Andrew's were also able to assemble two Foreign Service Units (which served in France and in hospital ships), a Military Nursing Service (derived from females Corps members) and a transport service alongside the British Red Cross attending to wounded soldiers from hospital trains. Whilst all of this was happening, St Andrew's usual civilian work of first aid training and casualty transportation continued unabated (albeit the additional services placed strain on the Association's funds).