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2021-12-31-accounts

St John Ambulance Annual Report and Accounts For the year ended 31 December 2021

SQJr ' Ask me how i w•d a mJn F5T•A 41 St John Ambulance

~~Why we exist~~

At St John we know that first aid saves lives

That’s why we want to ensure that everyone gets the help they need in a health crisis:

And that means putting people first, serving each other and our communities, inclusively and without judgement, with HEART: Humanity , Excellence , Accountability , Responsiveness and Teamwork .

For us, the story of 2021 is one of extraordinary resilience, innovation and delivery in the face of an ongoing and unpredictable global health emergency.

It was a year when the hard work and hope of St John people prevailed, and – alongside our best efforts to return to something close to normality – our mission to improve community health was at the heart of our work in a whole new way as we helped vaccinate the nation.

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Contents

Contents
Report of the trustees Why we exist 4
Foreword 7
Introduction 10
2021 in summary 12
Delivering for everyone in 2021 14
Acknowledging the challenges 19
Delivering our strategy 22
Covid-19 vaccinations A nation’s hopes pinned on jabs 26
January to March Ask me how I felt being St John’s frst volunteer vaccinator 30
Award-winning training 32
Who was behind the masks? 36
Ask me about the day I met the prime minister 39
April to June A spring flled with hope as a nation mourns 42
Ask me about St John’s incredible young people 45
Brighter, healthier futures 46
Ask me how I became the face of Ask Me 50
July to September Making our streets safer 54
Ask me how St John supported Afhan refugees 56
Ask us about our frst million hours of Covid response 58
October to December Lifesaving opportunities 64
Thank you for saving my life 66
Ask me about my year as a vaccinator 68
Another year, another race against time 70
Fundraising for St Johh 72
Uncertainties, opportunities, and principal risks 76
Plans for 2022 80
What next for St John 81
Finances and governance Statement of public beneft 84
Financial review Financial review of the year 88
Funds and reserves policies 92
Going concern 94
Trustees’ responsibilities statement 95
Structure, governance and management 96
Independent auditor’s report 104
Financial statements Statement of activities 108
Balance sheet 109
Cash fow statement 110
Notes to the accounts 111
Royal patrons, trustees, management and committees 133
Principal places of business and advisers 136

Foreword

Writing these words in the spring of 2022, it is already clear that 2021 was a unique year in St John Ambulance’s long history – one that we can all be proud of but would certainly never wish to repeat.

There can be no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic has challenged and changed us all. For St John people - including many people new to our cause - it was an opportunity to sacrifice and serve, from delivering millions of vaccines to relieving the continued pressure on NHS services. As we begin to emerge from this we find ourselves altered, with deeper relationships with the public and the health service.

From the youngest to the oldest members of St John, the frustrations of social isolation and some of our traditional opportunities being closed made 2021 a difficult year. Some have left us to do other things but, even as isolation ended, many St John people of all ages began to return to touchlines, finish lines, and the lines of festival goers in front of stages. They delivered safe spaces for our communities to come together once again. Our decision to support 16 and 17-years-olds volunteering with their adult counterparts boosted their experience and demonstrated the skills and capability of St John Cadets even as they prepared for 2022 and their centenary year.

We learned so much about leadership, our appetite for risk and using technology through the pandemic that we are building on that legacy. We have already seen thousands of vaccination volunteers sign up for a longer and more involved relationship with St John, indicating the start of what we anticipate will be a period of rapid growth. All of this comes against the backdrop of our financial strategy in 2020 paying dividends in 2021 with a vastly improved picture balancing the books over the two years of the pandemic. We must now invest to enable us to meet the challenges of the new economic realities in which we all find ourselves.

We pay tribute to every one of the St John people who gave up their safety, their comfortable spaces, and their time to ensure that as a nation we could recover from Covid. Every one of them can say with pride that they volunteered for St John Ambulance in the pandemic and quite rightly from the coffee shops to the hairdressers to the pubs and their workplaces, the public respond, ‘thank you for your service’.

Mick Messinger

Martin Houghton-Brown Chief Executive, St John Ambulance

Chancellor of the Priory of England and the Islands of the Order of St John

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Thank you for your support

We would like to give our sincere thanks to all those who so generously supported St John in 2021.

And a particular mention for the generosity of:

B&Q Swindon

A huge thank you to everyone who supports our charity’s vital work, including those who raise funds on our behalf. From direct debits to appeals, and all the donations dropped into a collection tin, every penny counts. Heartfelt thanks also to those who remembered St John Ambulance with a gift in their Will in 2021.

Burdett Trust for Nursing

Culture Recovery Fund

Co-op Community Funds

Denise Coates Foundation

Donors of Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire appeal

Embleton Trust

EBM Charitable Trust

Essity T/A BSN Medical Ltd

Garfield Weston Foundation

Gennets Charitable Trust

Mr Farha

Gilead Sciences

The John Armitage Charitable Trust

John James Bristol Foundation

Kinetik Wellbeing

The Medlock Charitable Trust Mark Master Masons Sussex NHS England

Peacock Charitable Trust

People’s Postcode Lottery

Rosalind Smith

ShareGift

Standard Chartered

Stoller Charitable Trust

Tesco Community Grants

The Vernon N Ely Charitable Trust

Without all of your generous donations, the efforts you see celebrated in this annual report would not have been possible.

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~~Introduction~~

If 2020 was a year that provided the greatest test of St John people’s mettle for generations, our continued response to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 upped the ante and propelled our charity into brand new territory.

At the start of the year, volunteers and staff had delivered around quarter of a million hours of support in hospitals, on ambulances and in support of community projects. We were well-versed in talking about our ‘biggest peacetime deployment’ but that was only the beginning.

In 2021, the astonishing efforts our teams put in during the first ten months of the pandemic continued – notably through our increasingly essential role as the nation’s ambulance auxiliary – but expanded dramatically when they were joined by a whole new wave of vaccination volunteers who, by the end of the year, had given almost a million hours of their time.

The story of last year, then, is very much one of jab after jab leading us out of the shadow of the pandemic – something you will see reflected strongly in this report – but it is also a story of extraordinary resilience that speaks to the strength of St John Ambulance’s heritage and values.

Against the background of our biggest ever intervention in protecting the nation’s health, we have not stood still. Instead, we have innovated and improved. We have led, listened and learned, striving to deliver on the commitments made in our 2019-22 Serving Your Communities strategy, under incredibly challenging circumstances. We tackled the difficult financial challenges of 2020 with board-led decisions that in 2021 led to a rebalancing of our finances, bringing us to a positive start at the beginning of 2022.

It has been a year of unparalleled success, tempered with humility that no organisation gets everything right and a charity with people at its heart has no hiding place when it comes to addressing longstanding underlying issues around our culture. Huge energy and significant investment have been put into making St John a better place to volunteer and work, during 2021 – efforts that have already made a positive difference but will really bear fruit in 2022 and for many years to come.

For now, let us focus on a year that ended with our pandemic response standing at almost 1.4 million hours of effort. More than just an overview of 2021; this report is the story of the amazing St John people who made each of those hours happen, including their first-hand reflections. It was a year where St John Ambulance delivered like never before and left us in a strong position for the challenges of the future.

In January 2021, life had become a waiting game. Jobs, opportunities, relationships were put on hold as the country locked its doors and waited to be let out again. Combined with biting cold weather and the toll of a third lockdown, it really did feel like the worst of times.

Eleanor Lawson Journalist and vaccination volunteer

When the NHS asked us to play a key role in delivering the country’s biggest ever vaccination programme, we were presented with a challenge which was huge, daunting and something we’d never attempted before. But we stepped up to that challenge knowing that it spoke to the very heart of our mission – the service of humanity.

We found new, more dynamic and innovative ways of doing things. Whether patient-facing or behind the scenes, St John people rallied to the cause keen to help in whatever way they could. We pulled together, cooperating, collaborating, finding solutions together. From Cadets, County Presidents, Priory Groups and Fellowship to the St John volunteers who made sure clinically vulnerable homeless people in Brighton were among the first to receive their vaccinations back in January - our whole St John family has pulled together for this fantastic collective effort. I am so very proud of each and every one of them!

Ann Cable

Chief Commissioner, St John Ambulance

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January to March April to June July to September October to December
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January to March April to June July to September October to December
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On January 11, the first seven large scale vaccination centres opened, in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Stevenage and Epsom, with St John vaccination volunteers at all of them.

By the end of January, more than 10,000 St John vaccination volunteers were deployed at 50+ centres across the country. They had already given more than 30,000 hours of their time, and that was just the beginning of efforts that would see almost a million hours of activity across 2021.

Vaccination activity continued to escalate as winter turned to spring. Our team was joined by some very well-known faces, and St John volunteers were thanked by VIPs including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, plus Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Almost 27,000 vaccination volunteers completed their training and were available across the country as the programme hit its peak of activity.

As the first Covid restrictions began to ease, the nation mourned the loss of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, and St John provided first aid support for the funeral.

Despite the challenges of the ongoing pandemic, St John Ambulance launched youth programmes aimed at helping us reach 10,000 more young people, while Cadets found all kinds of ways to support our charity’s work.

St John Ambulance launched its first major advertising campaign in many years. Ask Me was a gamechanger, with 2,000 billboards and poster sites across the country, plus radio advertising – all designed to make the public stop and think about the vital roles St John plays to ensure first aid saves lives.

‘Freedom Day’ saw more events coming back, with St John delivering first aid, plus an increase in our teams supporting the night-time economy, caring for people who find themselves sick or injured on long-awaited nights out.

Across the summer, our work on vaccination continued with ‘grab a jab’ events. In August, moved by the scenes of desperate people leaving Afghanistan, our teams in Birmingham and Manchester stepped forward to support refugees as they arrived at the cities’ airports.

Our efforts to create new, more flexible ways of being part of St John saw vaccination volunteers support first aid cover at the Great North Run.

And we reached one million hours of support to the nation during the Covid-19 pandemic. To mark the occasion, St John people were publicly thanked by Ministers and MPs in a celebration at the Houses of Parliament.

Against a background of concern around the potential threat from new Covid-19 variants, vaccination was joined by an increasing focus on St John Ambulance’s traditional activities.

Vaccination volunteers joined our team of first aiders at the London Marathon. Meanwhile, longstanding friendships were strengthened, and new alliances were forged as St John worked in partnerships including Restart a Heart and The Circuit .

Our work on leading standards, in partnership with CitizenAID and counter-terrorism police was boosted by the launch of new Public Access Trauma Kits , designed to become as commonplace as defibrillators and save lives in the event of catastrophic injuries.

But the pandemic was far from over and, as Christmas and New Year celebrations hung in the balance because of a new wave of coronavirus infections sweeping the country, St John vaccination volunteers rallied to the cause and gave the booster programme shot in the arm.

~~2021 in summary~~

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~~Delivering for everyone in 2021~~

Celebrating our achievements

While the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic brought continued challenges to delivering our 2019-22 strategy, and caused some inevitable delays, we have still made progress in our long-term goals and take pride in the impact we’ve had for communities when it has mattered most.

Ambulance Operations

Vaccination programme

You can read about St John Ambulance’s involvement in the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme in depth on page 26 and throughout this report, but the effect of this programme has been transformative for our charity – including bringing changes that we’re still working through and are yet to fully understand.

As a blue light service, our ambulance support to all NHS Trusts in England continued throughout the year, with 365,900 hours (86,867 on NHS support and 279,033 on contract work) of activity, delivered by our volunteer and employed emergency ambulance crew members, working side by side as one amazing team.

What we do know is that rapid mass recruitment has diversified our volunteer pool, tapping into new audiences for first aid and health volunteering, with volunteers coming from multiple sources. Our 26,987 vaccination volunteers included people who came to us from partner charities - 10,950 NHS Volunteer Responders who transferred from RVS (Royal Voluntary Service) and several hundred from the British Red Cross - plus 12,501 members of the public who St John had previously given first aid training, 267 firefighters and many more from employers with whom St John has close working relationships.

You can read more about this vital work, including responding to 999 calls, on page 58.

In addition to our vital emergency provision, we added a new contract with Birmingham Women’s & Children’s Hospital, providing a non-emergency patient ambulance transport service, while further contracts for neo-natal and paediatric transfer services continued.

Overall, our ambulance service is a real success story for St John – we have moved from a loss of £4.1 million in 2019, to a net contribution to the charity of £1.5 million in 2021. That improved financial performance paves the way for growth in 2022 and beyond, with additional contracts and services coming on stream as we work increasingly closely with NHS partners.

As far as we know, throughout 2021, England remained the only nation in the world to train members of the public to administer Covid-19 vaccinations .

A huge thank you to everyone – volunteers and employees – who supported this programme in our country’s hour of greatest need.

Our expertise and experience in this area – together with the wider work of our clinically-trained volunteers – lends weight to our ask to Government that St John be formally recognised as the nation’s ambulance auxiliary within the architecture of national resilience, to ensure all relevant organisations know they can call on us and can build our capacity into their emergency preparedness, resilience, and response planning.

St John Ambulance’s Covid response

Total hours: 1,359,777

(Figures from March 2020 onwards, as of December 31, 2021)

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St John people in numbers

(Figures correct as of the end of 2021) (*Includes volunteers who are inactive at present)

191,963 people trained in workplaces all over England

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Fleet that’s fit for the future

We have also worked hard to make sure our fleet of ambulances and other vehicles is flexible, sustainable, and fit for purpose. Since 2017, we have reduced the number of vehicles St John has on the road from almost 900 to under 600.

Older fleet is being replaced with new box-body ambulances that meet the highest clinical and operational standards. Alongside them, 2021 saw the introduction of our first nine electric vehicles, and we have a further 12 on order for 2022.

Many of these new vehicles have been funded by generous donations from supporters, through local appeals, and via gifts left in wills. The transformational impact will be felt in communities for many years to come.

Answering the nation’s continued need for first aid training

Alongside all of this, we have defied the limitations of lockdown to educate around half a million people in life saving skills.

Working within Covid restrictions, we have restored our vital workplace training provision swiftly and safely – including successfully blending online and secure face-to-face delivery – with the numbers of people trained up 53% on 2020.

And we laid the groundwork for a major expansion of community training in first aid skills that could save lives – including teaching at least 60,000 more people CPR in 2022.

You can read more about our award-winning training on page 32.

Community Response

Within and alongside our Covid response, we have supported communities across England via projects and programmes that have the potential to expand in future.

Hospital volunteering is among the most successful innovations that have happened within St John during the pandemic – opening up important new partnerships with the NHS. Our evaluation of the service (from April 2020 to March 2021) showed the 117,839 hours clinically-skilled St John volunteers gave in 38 hospital trusts, delivered positive impacts including freeing up doctors and nurses to focus on the patients in greatest need, and easing the time pressures on hard-working health service colleagues.

Our falls services in Wolverhampton and Bexley continue to support the elderly and frail in their own homes and avoid unnecessary hospital admissions.

Though our night-time economy operations were suspended in the first part of the year due to lockdown restrictions, they ramped up significantly in the Summer and subsequent months, in multiple locations including Newcastle, Birmingham and Manchester.

Meanwhile our expert teams of volunteers and staff carried on caring for the homeless community in Sussex, with additional provision in other parts of the country.

~~Acknowledging the challenges~~

Volunteer and Young People experience

Event first aid

The pandemic was tough on all charities, including St John, as many people were forced to shield from the virus, or unable to fulfil new or existing roles in our Covid response. Many volunteers, including Cadets, joined our Welcome Team during vaccination recruitment, while others found new ways of supporting St John, in person or virtually.

According to polling we commissioned in summer 2021, along with first aid training (74%), our caring, reassuring presence at events such as concerts and sports fixtures is what 72% of the public most recognise St John Ambulance for.

Last year saw us take time to review and develop event medical services provision via our Events Futures Commission, with the ensuing recommendations resulting in an implementation plan that runs to mid-2024 and has seen immediate benefits. The commission’s aims are:

Notably, our training of almost 30,000 new vaccination volunteers was bolstered by hundreds of 16 and 17-year-old Cadets who played a vital role in sharing lifesaving skills and getting members of the public ready to administer jabs. And, while under-18s were unable to vaccinate, that didn’t stop many of our young people getting involved with delivering the vaccination programme as advocates and care volunteers.

Some of our exciting new youth programmes (which you can read about on pages 46-49) were delayed by Covid, but this has given us time to consider and implement alternative ways of delivering training and support, as well as taking the opportunity to collaborate with our target audiences on how best to reach them and achieve the positive impacts on health, wellbeing and employability that we are committed to delivering.

Meanwhile, as the Government was planning for events with crowds to return safely when Covid restrictions lifted, experts from St John were closely involved.

Our big ambitions to reach 10,000 more young people depend on inspiring more supporters to join us and help support this next generation of lifesavers.

And, despite us spending the first half of 2021 in lockdown, our events teams have still been busy. Last year saw us deliver first aid cover at 5,534 events over 6,728 event days. Of those events, more than a third were community events (38% of the total) with 139 events delivered entirely free of charge.

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Living our values in action

No organisation is perfect, and St John has faced some significant challenges during 2021. We already knew there were aspects of our culture that didn’t live up to the values of Humanity, Excellence, Accountability, Responsiveness and Teamwork (HEART) we aspire to, and were taking steps to improve the charity. At the turn of the year, we were called to comment on these issues in the media and in doing so set out our trustee-sponsored plans for investment to ensure St John is as open, diverse and inclusive an organisation as possible.

Our survey of volunteers and employees told us that while 9 out of 10 people felt proud to be part of St John, and 75% see our HEART values being displayed in their everyday experience, just 6 in 10 felt safe to speak up and challenge the way things were done. Additional claims of poor behaviours then accelerated our drive to act and invest significantly in change by committing £500,000 to our Values in Action programme. That investment has in part allowed us to bring in sector-leading experts to help shape our response. We have so far piloted leadership development programmes and introduced pioneering approaches to conflict resolution, both of which will roll out in 2022. We have grown our Freedom to Speak Up Advocate network. And, through extensive consultation, we have developed ready for launch in 2022, our Heartbeat programme which will use communications campaign techniques to translate our values into tangible, everyday actions that all St John people can engage with.

During 2021 we also set about reorganising the way our charity works, so that we serve our goals and – most importantly – our people better. This work included adopting the following guiding principles for our leadership:

You can read more about our plans on pages 76-78.

2021 was yet another year where we saw our people stepping forward and answering the needs of their communities, and I continue to be humbled by the outstanding impact that our volunteers make.

With our people at the centre of our work, we refocused our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and introduced five people networks: the Women’s Network; Multi-culture Network; Pride Network; Family and Carers Network; and Accessibility Network. These groups have helped the national EDI steering group to understand the issues faced by our people and they have been working to develop strategies to ensure that all our people feel valued and have the right access to resources and opportunities.

With our continued focus on our people, we commenced the process to source a new uniform provider for the charity. The process commenced by us asking our people for the aspects of our uniform that they liked and those that would be better if. Through a very comprehensive process, two potential suppliers were whittled down and a uniform trial commenced. A cross section of our people have been using the two sets of trial uniform and feeding back their opinions on a regular basis. The final awarding of the contract is due in early 2022. The process will ensure that our people have the best possible uniform for the functions that they are delivering, by a service that has the user at its centre, and that is conscious of the environmental and people impact.

As well as being a year to be proud of the impact that St John made within our communities, we can also celebrate the progress that we made to support our people to have a good and positive experience from their time with us.

Andy Wapling

Commissioner Volunteering, St John Ambulance

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2022

2021

2022

~~Delivering our strategy~~

2021

Inspiring Community Response

Strategy Goal: By 2022 h Over 1 million hours of h Trusted community health we want St John people support to health services and emergency response and our community and communities in delivery partner for the NHS. response programmes to response to the pandemic. reach and sustain more h Consolidate existing of the communities most h New opportunities for St community response impacted by this generation’s John volunteers. delivery ready to scale community health challenges. up our impact in our next h New partnerships on strategy period. Community Resuscitation and trauma response.

Young People at the Heart of Communities

An inclusive charity ensuring the best experience for all St John people

Leading Standards

By 2022, we will lead on standards of first aid, independent ambulance care and public event healthcare in England to ensure the best outcome for patients.

A sustainable charity, connected to the communities we serve

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Covid-19 vaccinations

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~~A nation’s hopes pinned on jabs~~

In the aftermath of a hugely curtailed Christmas and cancelled New Year celebrations, the amount of hope invested in the roll-out of effective Covid-19 vaccinations at the beginning of 2021 cannot be overstated. As England abandoned attempts to control the virus through tiers of localised restrictions and entered a third national lockdown on Wednesday January 6, help was on the way – St John Ambulance was preparing for its biggest mobilisation of volunteers for generations.

As the first vaccination volunteers went on duty in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Stevenage and Epsom, thousands more were being trained to join them. Processes were accelerated and expanded to bring in the concept of ‘hypercentres’ – venues like conference centres and football stadiums where hundreds of vaccination volunteers could receive face-to-face training in a single day.

Early in their planning, NHS England and NHS Improvement swiftly identified that the need for people to administer and support vaccinations could be a significant drain on resources already overstretched by the response to the pandemic and the growing backlog of elective care. In England, plans were drawn up for vaccinator recruitment; a 100,000-strong team of people, enabled by changes in the law around who was able to administer medical injections to the public, was to be created.

By the end of January, 10,000 volunteers were ready and cleared for deployment. By the end of March, recruitment would top-out at 26,987 which St John and the NHS agreed would be enough to deliver the required levels of support.

And, thanks to our unique position in the voluntary sector as a training provider with clinical volunteers and the ability to add more, St John Ambulance was tasked with recruiting, training and deploying up to 30,000 volunteers – almost a third of the overall workforce.

January to March also saw training switch focus from readying approximately 10,000 people for each vaccination role, to ensuring that 20,000 volunteers were trained as vaccinators, both to assist with demand as vaccine supplies increased, and to ensure the greatest possible flexibility in the workforce on the ground.

Initial expectations were that mass vaccination would begin in spring 2021, but by the end of 2020 plans were in place for the first seven large-scale vaccination centres to open on Monday January 11, with St John volunteers active in all of them.

Vaccination volunteers delivered 30,000 hours of activity per week at the programme’s peak, in April. Vaccination ultimately accounted for almost three-quarters of St John Ambulance’s operational activity in 2021, with volunteers active at around 650 locations, as well as providing outreach and mobile services to get as many people as possible protected from Covid-19.

St John vaccination volunteers covered three roles:

We will return to this incredible story at several points in the coming pages. It is a story of dynamic adaptation to help deliver the only way out of a nationwide emergency, that was only possible thanks to St John trustees’ and executives’ commitment to prioritising our charity’s most significant single intervention in public health since the Second World War.

Their training was on a sliding scale so that vaccinators could fulfil all three roles, and care volunteers act as advocates, to ensure maximum flexibility in the workforce.

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January to March

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~~Ask me how I felt being St John’s first volunteer vaccinator~~

Lucy Aerts has many volunteer roles with St John and was our first volunteer vaccinator to administer a Covid jab, on January 11, 2021. She tells us more about her experience of last year.

I’m not surprised thousands more people offered to sign up as volunteer vaccinators when the call went out at the end of the year, because everyone wants to do their bit and help us get out of this pandemic. My advice thinking about becoming a vaccinator, is to say ‘just do it’; giving injections is something that’s outside everyone’s comfort zone, but there’s plenty of support in place. Ask questions, stay curious and remember that everyone wants you to succeed.

When I look back on 2021, it doesn’t feel like a year – it went so fast, but the vaccination programme still feels genuinely fulfilling to be involved with.

Day one of my vaccination duty felt very much like the first day of school. My uniform was clean, pressed and I was freshly armed with the excellent training provided by St John and ready to go. Nerves were in full force, of course, as we did not know what to expect. Neither was I aware it was the first time a St John person was administering the vaccine. From the moment that first jab was given I felt an immense amount of pride.

Being part of the Vaccination programme is the best thing I’ve done in a very long time. 2021 was a big year for me. I carried on volunteering at the ExCel until the centre closed, then moved to the new venue at Westfield. I moved to Essex and have carried on vaccinating locally, as well as managing teams of vaccination and hospital volunteers alongside leading first aid cover at events.

To be able to provide support to our NHS, to help the country back to normal in a way and protect its citizens was not something I ever imagined I would do. All I could think of was my late dad and how proud it would have made him.

Covid has affected everybody – in all kinds of ways – but giving my time as a volunteer vaccinator with St John has really helped my mental health and wellbeing. And being part of St John has inspired me to go into healthcare; my next steps are to become an Emergency Ambulance Crew member with a view to becoming a paramedic in the future. It never is too late.

It was an incredible and emotional day standing side by side with the NHS and fellow volunteers. It is a day I will never forget, and I am grateful for St John Ambulance for giving me the opportunity to make a difference.

Since then, I’ve lost count of how many jabs I’ve delivered but it must be thousands – not just Covid – but flu jabs as well – and I gave lots more over the last few weeks of 2021, in support of the booster programme.

This has been a big thing for St John Ambulance to take on and I think we’ve changed the way people see us. We’re not amateurs; we’re highly trained, caring volunteers with professional skills who are making a really positive difference to people’s health. We know what we’re doing and we’re here to help.

Back in November, this programme was just scribbled plans and good ideas. But since the first week of December, we’ve trained 600 trainers, who in turn have trained 2,500 people. More than 37,000 people have expressed an interest in joining us, and 30,000 have filled out applications. We are getting a volume of people the like of which we’ve never seen.

Richard Lee

Chief Operating Officer, St John Ambulance January 12, 2021

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~~Award-winning training~~

By the end of January, dozens more vaccination centres had popped up all over England; more than 50 were open, and demand for St John people to help run them was huge. Fortunately, our volunteer training team was pulling out all the stops to get as many as possible tagged as ‘deployable’, and – less than one month into starting work on the programme – 10,000 of the new vaccination volunteers were fully-trained and ready to go.

Amongst all of this, on Thursday February 18, St John Ambulance won silver in the People Development Programme category of the Learning Awards, which recognise innovation and achievement in training.

Our Covid-19 Care training programme was originally designed in March 2020 to train our volunteers – who were, at that time, more accustomed to giving first aid at football matches and community events – to work safely in settings where they could find themselves working with patients infected with the coronavirus, including supporting NHS teams inside hospital emergency departments for the first time.

At the time we clinched this award, 5,000 volunteers had received the training and used their skills to provide more than 300,000 hours of patient-facing care.

And the programme paved the way for enabling St John to train vaccination volunteers in large numbers at speed. Our training team increased their output by almost 59% in 2021, spending 305,853 hours training existing and new St John people up from 192,513 hours in 2020. Of that, 183,969 hours went into creating a voluntary workforce for the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme in 2021, alongside a further 121,884 hours training volunteers in first aid and other essential skills to enable them to cover events, work in hospitals, crew ambulances and more.

In addition to volunteer training, we also reached 191,963 people (up from 125,388 in 2020) with professional training in first aid, mental health first aid and health and safety courses – all vital to making workplaces safe for people’s return as the pandemic eased.

This was a great reward for an amazing team effort. Training so many volunteers in such a short timeframe was a huge challenge, but we knew St John volunteers could really make a difference on the frontline if we could get them there.

A huge thank you and well done to everyone involved, especially the thousands of volunteers who stepped forward without hesitation to give frontline care in such challenging circumstances.

Carl Makins

Head of Volunteer Training, St John Ambulance February 2021

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2021 was an incredible year for training and I pay tribute to everyone in St John who made it so successful. Their amazing work has had such an incredibly positive impact in communities all over England.

If anyone had told me in 2020 that we would have trained almost 27,000 brand new vaccination volunteers in just four months, I’m not sure I’d have believed them, but the momentous efforts of trainers, demonstrators and support staff made that happen and more.

The energy and scale of our training team’s achievement was beyond belief – I was hugely impressed at the sight of hundreds of people being trained in hypercentres every weekend, for example – and the nation owes them a debt of gratitude.

Janet Catto

Commissioner Training, St John Ambulance

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~~Who was behind the masks?~~

Many famous faces – from our Grand President, HRH The Countess of Wessex , to Olympics athletes, actors and explorers – were among the new team who trained with St John as vaccination volunteers…

Husband and wife, Matt Willis , Busted band member, and Emma Willis , presenter of TV shows including The Voice UK, The Circle and Delivering Babies. Matt told us: “I remember St John from backstage at venues and festivals. At the front there was either a paramedic or someone from St John stood in front of us. I’d recognise those jackets anywhere and it’s a good feeling! Many of us have a lot of time on our hands right now and I want to be able to look back in 10/20 years and say I used that time wisely – we did our little bit and we helped in some way.”

Dr Anna Watkins , world champion rower and double Olympic medallist: “I was offered the chance to train as a volunteer vaccinator with St John Ambulance; I didn’t hesitate. The training was very well organised and thorough – as well as being quite fun and jolly! I’m the sort of person who feels energised in a crisis and I just want to do something practical to help.”

Dr Ranj Singh , NHS doctor, author, and Strictly Come Dancing contestant said: “Volunteering to be a vaccinator was something I didn’t think twice about. I know how important it is and I wanted to help in any way I could. So doing it with St John Ambulance, whom I have supported for many years, seemed like the obvious choice. I have been absolutely blown away by the sheer dedication of both the training team and my fellow volunteers. Its feels like we’re part of something very special. It’s the best thing I’ve done in a while!”

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It was a privilege to speak to St John Ambulance vaccination volunteers in Cornwall today, to thank them for their extraordinary contribution to the vaccine rollout.

Our brilliant volunteers have helped us get jabs into arms quickly and efficiently – providing millions of people with the reassurance that they are protected against the virus.

We couldn’t do it without them, and I am incredibly grateful for their continued dedication and hard work.

~~Ask me about the day I met the Prime Minister~~

As we approached the anniversary of the first nationwide lockdown on March 23, England was in the grip of tight restrictions aimed at preventing Covid infections and deaths. But almost a year into the global pandemic, there was light at the end of the tunnel; vaccination was in full swing, and St John was being praised for its service to the nation’s health. Our volunteer District Clinical Lead for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Nicola Fielding , gives her take on 2021.

I have been a volunteer with St John Ambulance for 28 years and have made lots of great memories over that time, but 2021 was certainly a year to remember. I had the privilege of training hundreds of volunteers to become vaccinators and was amazed by the sheer number of people who came forward to give their time to support their community. I felt a real sense of pride every time I provided training to the many volunteers who were attending from all walks of life.

Although most of my time with St John Ambulance was spent managing, training and coordinating, I also volunteered on the front line as Emergency Ambulance Crew. I loved this opportunity to give back and to support our community and the local ambulance service.

I often reflect upon 2021 and the impact the year has had on my journey with St John Ambulance and personally as well. It was an incredibly difficult time for everyone and I was no exception to that. Other than my partner, all of my family live over 300 miles away from me, so I saw very little of them due to national and local restrictions. Myself and my partner had also been working through an adoption process during the whole of 2021, which was made all the more challenging by the national restrictions. I am thrilled to say though, that our year ended much more positively than it began with the arrival of our adopted twins who bring a whole new set of challenges!

In March, I was asked to host a video call with our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, at the vaccination centre hosted at Stithians Showground. I arrived at the showground in the morning feeling rather nervous and wondering what to say. Well, the Cornish weather certainly made things even more challenging that day. We were stood in a marquee in the middle of an agricultural showground with gale force winds threatening to take the roof off; we could not hear a thing! Thankfully, the Chief Pharmacist on site found a set of headphones for me to use, so that I could at least hear the Prime Minister during our call.

I have reflected upon this day several times over the past year and still feel a sense of pride that I was asked to represent St John in this way and give a small insight into the amazing work of our volunteers down here in Cornwall.

In addition to supporting the vaccine programme, I was also asked to coordinate a team of volunteers supporting our local Emergency Departments where they worked tirelessly alongside our NHS partners to provide direct patient care in a busy department at an incredibly difficult time for the nation.

Boris Johnson

Prime Minister March 11, 2021

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April to June

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~~A spring filled with hope as a nation mourns~~

April began with St John Ambulance’s team of vaccination volunteers at full capacity and we reached half a million of hours of pandemic support activity early in the month.

With spring in the air, schools reopened and England’s vaccination efforts outpacing the rest of the world, the country was looking forward to the gradual end of further constraints on everyday life, but news that non-essential retail was returning soon, and pubs and restaurants would be able to open outdoors was tempered by the sad loss of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on Friday April 9. While his funeral, just over a week later, would be a muted occasion, with the public unable to gather and mourn, St John Ambulance played its part in proceedings, just as it has for Royal occasions since the nineteenth century. Peter Hollely led our contribution to the event and relates his experience.

For many years, St John volunteers and staff have prepared our charity’s response to the death of a senior member of the Royal Family, but Covid-19 restrictions saw funeral arrangements scaled back and our role limited to a team of 50 first aiders and clinicians – mainly in Windsor, but with a small presence in central London.

The atmosphere was sombre and professional. You plan for these things but can never really prepare for how it feels on the day; Prince Philip is a hugely significant figure in the life our nation and it was almost impossible to believe he was gone. I’m glad we were able to observe the silence in the control room and share that moment of reflection together.

My main role in planning for Saturday April 17 was managing people’s expectations around a limited operation that provided what was required with the right amounts of compassion, respect, and discretion. St John people’s instincts are always to get involved and do whatever they can to help, but, while final arrangements were confirmed just days before the funeral, it was always clear large numbers wouldn’t be required for this occasion in the way we’d always planned. It was a dynamic situation and, as manager, I had to ensure people were accurately briefed and reassured that we were doing enough.

Looking back on the rest of 2021, from a personal perspective, my year started with a move to Croydon and a more senior role as Head of Nursing for emergency care, and – after cancelling our wedding twice, because of the pandemic – I finally married my partner of 13 years in October. It was a very busy but very good year!

With St John, I’d only taken on my regional events role during the pandemic, so that’s been all about our Covid response – especially vaccination and building even stronger relationships with the NHS. I’ve truly seen us at our best, and now I’m both excited and anxious about how all the positive steps we’ve taken over the last couple of years play out, how our new structures work and what St John does next. For me, it’s about making sure our people feel welcomed, supported, and able to make their contribution as part of the St John family.

On the day, rather than drawing in large numbers of volunteers from across the country, the majority of our work was delivered by the team from our Thames Valley District plus specialist resources like cycle responders. I was running things from our offices in York Street, London, with BBC News coverage of the funeral on television, and close contact with our teams in Windsor and on The Mall.

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~~Ask me about St John’s incredible young people~~

For St John Ambulance’s young volunteers, 2021 was another year of disrupted studies, seeing friends online and living through experiences they will one day enthral and impress their grandchildren with. Where February would traditionally see us hold our Cadet of the Year competition, the class of 2020 were pressed into service for a second year, including the national winner, Luke Stevenson from Leicestershire, who shares his reflections on 2021.

Last year saw the biggest challenges and changes to our youth programme in the eight years I have been with St John Ambulance. I was lucky enough to have an insight into this extraordinary year, to witness its sensational highs and, inevitably, its lows.

If I have learnt one thing from 2021 it’s that our young people are the driving force of our youth programmes. I’ve had the privilege of meeting so many of them from up and down the country and I say to them, “You are the reason that we are seeing more opportunities than ever before for our young people. You answered the call for help, you conducted yourself impeccably and you’ve shone a light on the capabilities of young people”. I mean every word of it.

Cadets who volunteered to train vaccinators, brand training materials, run virtual unit meeting nights, stock kit at logistic hubs and so much more, sent a reminder out that young people are not just the next generation of St John volunteers; they are the current generation of St John volunteers . They offer energy and enthusiasm that is second to none.

When talking about young people in St John, I sometimes think we forget the 18-25 bracket too. Whilst I didn’t have such a great oversight at this age bracket, I did see the exceptional talent and skill of young Youth Leaders and Helpers throughout the country. Many of them had not long left our Cadet programme themselves and were going above and beyond to support and empower young people who were going out to serve their communities.

Of course, not every young person could perform an operational role due to age, geographical location, having to protect vulnerable family members and many other valid reasons. But this still didn’t stop them from getting involved. Many continued to work toward their Grand Prior’s Award online, with lots attending both their own unit and wider district or regional sessions. I also had the honour of celebrating the thousands of pounds that Cadets and Badgers fundraised for our charity.

Our charity’s leaders, both employed and volunteer, showed fantastic responsiveness. Countless hours have been spent to develop volunteering opportunities, plan sessions and make sure it is safe for Cadets to volunteer. I know all the young people would like to express their gratitude for the hard work that went in over 2021 to make it all happen.

As we entered 2022, I was left feeling reassuringly optimistic; excited to see our Year of Youth Celebrations taking shape and, more than anything, hopeful that the legacy young people created for themselves in 2021 will not be forgotten and will inspire all members of St John, from the young to the not-so-young.

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~~Brighter, healthier futures~~

Last year may have been challenging for St John Ambulance’s young volunteers, but that didn’t stop us preparing to celebrate the centenary of our Cadets in 2022, making improvements to our existing programmes, and launching or preparing innovative and exciting new opportunities for an even wider range of young people.

Inspiring this next generation of lifesavers would be impossible without the generous donations from our supporters and funders. Thank you all for making a massive difference to the lives of thousands of young people.

NHS Cadets

Developed by St John Ambulance in partnership with NHS England and Improvement, NHS Cadets aims to transform the lives of young people by equipping them with the skills to aspire towards volunteering and potentially careers in healthcare.

NHS Cadets come from a diverse range of backgrounds: examples include caring for a family member, identifying as neurodivergent, or coming from an ethnic minority. The programme is fully funded, and free for those who qualify.

We offer two pathways: Foundation (for ages 14-16) and Advanced (for ages 16–18). The Foundation Pathway develops young people’s transferable skills in areas such as compassionate leadership and healthy teamwork. It aims to build confidence and develop awareness of healthcare volunteering.

The Advanced Pathway considers what healthcare is like both globally and closer to home, and what it means to care for individuals and support communities.

NHS Cadets tell us they trust their youth leaders, reporting that they feel welcome and respected. Graduates from the programme have said they feel confident, resilient and more optimistic about their futures.

“NHS Cadets has taught me valuable skills I could use in the future. It’s given me confidence and I’ve made new friends. I know so much more about our health service now.”

I always knew I wanted to help people when I’m older. But St John opened me up to amazing career prospects within the NHS and wonderful world of healthcare. I feel I’ve gained more knowledge on a career in health and have been given insightful opportunities to learn from real, inspiring healthcare professionals.

Minali Mihiripenna

NHS Cadet from Croydon

NHS Cadet

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Young Responders

“Thanks to support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery, thousands of young people will receive training which will help within our communities for years to come.

“The impact of Covid-19 have been felt acutely by young people and the Young Responders initiative will help rebuild confidence and skills that will have a positive lasting impact.”

Laura Chow Head of Charities at People’s Postcode Lottery

First announced in May 2020, our £1 million Young Responders initiative is targeted at 14-25-year-olds coming out of the care system, young carers, young people not in employment, education or training, and those exposed to street violence or at risk of poor health outcomes.

The content, testing and delivery have all been shaped by the young people to address specific needs within their own communities.

Through this peer-led programme, Young Responders will have the opportunity - for the first time - to acquire both physical and mental health first aid skills relevant to their lives, helping them to better look after themselves and others around them.

“Even after a hundred years of youth work, St John is still learning. Through Young Responders, we are rethinking the way we develop some of our youth programmes, drawing on the experience and expertise of young people to design and deliver peer-led mental and physical first aid sessions that will save lives in some of our most challenged communities.

“Thanks to funds raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery and awarded through Postcode Innovation Trust for making this possible.”

Martin Houghton-Brown CEO, St John Ambulance

Health Citizens

Health Citizens is a community programme that aims to reach and train young people aged between 16 and 25 in a wide range of essential leadership skills, whilst supporting and guiding them through employability opportunities and peer group coaching. Funded by the Standard Chartered Foundation, the programme is part of Futuremakers by Standard Chartered, a global initiative to tackle economic inequality.

“We are incredibly proud to launch the Health Citizens Programme with St John Ambulance as part of Futuremakers to support young people in our local communities who are some of the hardest hit by the economic and social impact of Covid-19.

“We have a real opportunity to inspire, encourage and share our knowledge and expertise to help equip the next generation with skills for the future and to thrive. We are thrilled to be part of this much-needed programme and cannot wait to see how the participants’ progress.”

Torry Berntsen

CEO of Europe & Americas, Standard Chartered

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~~Ask me how I became the face of Ask Me~~

Summer marked the start of St John Ambulance’s first brand campaign in more than a decade. Ask Me came from our longstanding need to help the public understand our charity’s reach and impact more clearly. At a time when St John’s profile was at its highest and we were rarely far from the headlines, it remained the case that being well known but not known well was a challenge that needed to be addressed. And what better way to do that than through the stories of St John people? Dr Zain Osmani tells us all about his experience.

I’m grateful to have been offered this opportunity to represent St John Ambulance; we all do incredible work, and this was evident more than ever before during 2021, so it was right that we’ve shared some amazing stories with the world via Ask Me.

Monday June 14 started at 6am, in the sunshine on the South Bank of the Thames at a photoshoot with the ever radiant Myleene Klass and a very flustered me, having stained my shirt whilst ironing that morning AND forgotten to pack my hair gel (a thank you here to my friend Dave Shuttleworth, who was looking after the launch event for St John and shares my enthusiasm for hair clay – you saved the day on the hairstyling front!). Whilst scrolling through my phone on the way to our next engagement, I found myself at the centre of Myleene’s social media channels and started to realise that the Ask Me campaign was about to become something very special.

For me, last year – and indeed the whole of the pandemic – was about public service. St John people stepped up to serve when presented with entirely unprecedented circumstances and together we delivered exactly as per the motto of the Order of St John pro utilitate hominum – in the service of humanity. The vast majority of my time in St John during 2021 was spent volunteering as Emergency Ambulance Crew, supporting London Ambulance Service by responding to emergency calls across the capital whilst the service was under immense pressure.

Next up was a live CPR demonstration on Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine show. I’d never been live on TV, so I can honestly say I was a nervous wreck. Having been with St John Ambulance for 16 years and just completed a medical degree, I thought my knowledge of basic life support would have been adequate yet seemed unable to recall a thing once I sat down in the green room (thanks here to St John trainer Richard Salter for the emergency revision session over Facetime, moments before I was on air). Fortunately, once we went live there were no significant mishaps, apart from advising viewers to cover patients’ faces with ‘tablecloths’ as opposed to the much more practical ‘tea towels’…

Becoming a doctor was a childhood ambition of mine and St John Ambulance has played an intrinsic role in helping me accomplish that dream – the combination of delivering a Sky News live interview on behalf of St John and celebrating my graduation day was incredibly special for me and is certainly something I will always remember. I am forever grateful to everything St John Ambulance has offered me both as a young person and as an adult volunteer, and I look forward to giving back to the charity as a doctor for many years to come.

Recruiting a CPR army

June also saw us announce the new CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) Community Network, where we were tasked by the NHS with drawing together training and advocacy provision, then recruiting hundreds of volunteers to teach and raise awareness of CPR and defibrillators across the country, with the aim of saving up to 4,000 lives a year.

With only one in three people in England giving CPR when they witness someone going into cardiac arrest, the initiative aims to help meet the NHS Long Term Plan aim of increasing the out of hospital cardiac arrest survival rate in England from 7% to 25%.

We know there is demand for this vital knowledge. Following Eriksen’s collapse we saw a 1000% increase in calls asking for CPR training, while searches for CPR advice were up 565% and defibrillator guides up 1,900%.

In 2022, our CPR Community Network will reach around 60,000 people – just one of many ways St John will teach first aid across the country.

The news came just days after Danish footballer Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on live television, and the media captured the public mood by calling the Community Advocates who will share lifesaving skills a ‘CPR Army’.

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July to September

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~~Making our streets safer~~

Summer saw us move out of lockdown, with the ‘Freedom Day’ originally planned for mid-June delayed to July 19. But the caution around the additional risks and greater transmissibility of the Delta variant has to be set against a picture of growing resistance to the coronavirus. By July 2, around 38 million people in England had received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 28 million people had their second dose, with millions of jabs administered and supported by St John volunteers. People were looking forward to big nights out and our teams were on hand to help.

Having highly trained first aiders and medical professionals on hand, close to pubs and clubs, means treatment is available when people need it most.

Research conducted for St John at the outset of our Ask Me campaign showed that 73% of people were planning to head to bars and restaurants as soon as lockdown was lifted. And, even with hefty restrictions in place, the experience of our emergency ambulance crews and night-time economy (NTE) support teams over the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May had been of town and city centres that were busier than a normal New Year’s Eve.

Summer saw us expand our NTE work across more locations, to care for revellers who found themselves in need of medical help.

St John Ambulance first aid provision to make nights out safer has become a regular fixture in recent years, with projects in locations including London, Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester.

Our volunteers can care for anyone who’s worse for wear, sick or injured and – crucially – prevent unnecessary hospital admissions. And that’s why we are rapidly expanding our work in support of the night-time economy to preCovid levels and beyond.

Led by healthcare professionals and highly trained volunteers, NTE support aims to reduce demand on frontline NHS services by providing healthcare and treating patients on the spot. It is work that is in huge demand and St John has ambitious plans to scale up this work, as part of wider initiatives to create safer streets in 2022 and beyond.

Craig Harman

Director of Health and Volunteering Operations, St John Ambulance

Sharing lifesaving skills

Raisa Stefanescu is a teenager from East London who teaches first aid skills to other teenagers after witnessing a young boy stabbed in the street. Her story was featured in the second wave of our Ask Me campaign.

When you hear it on the news it sounds a bit like a statistic, but when you actually see it happen, it really makes you think about how many more incidents there are and how many more victims. It was really sad to see, but it has spurred me on to do something positive in other situations.

I teach other young people, around 13 or 14 years old, how to go out and make a difference in their communities. Hopefully in the future, I’ll hear that somebody I taught made an impact on someone else’s life.

Raisa Stefanescu

St John Ambulance Cadet

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~~Ask me how St John supported Afghan refugees~~

The plight of people forced to flee their homeland – many in fear of their lives – has touched us all, and the response from St John Ambulance colleagues when we were asked to help care for Afghan refugees has been overwhelming.

Our people are delivering high quality clinical care to the people who need it most – just as we always do in times of trouble.

Our highly trained first aiders and emergency ambulance crew members are supporting patients suffering from malnutrition and dehydration, along with other conditions and injuries sustained during their wait to leave Afghanistan.

Those few days at Birmingham Airport were incredibly busy. Even when we weren’t providing first aid, there was lots of stuff to do – and absolutely zero time to sit still. At any hour, we might be helping with welfare, answering questions, handing out food and water or directing people to other services.

It was important to remember that many arrivals had been travelling for a pretty long time by the time they reached us. What wasn’t widely reported is that lot of the refugees had to walk for three or four days to even reach Kabul. Then they spent another four days crowded together and threatened in the blistering heat at the airport. Unsurprisingly, many were suffering from dehydration and malnutrition when they landed in Birmingham.

We dealt with lots of minor injuries caused by general wear and tear – such as blisters, splinters and small cuts. Many of the arrivals also had cold and flu symptoms; we saw numerous chesty coughs and mild fevers, especially with the little ones. And there were quite a few people from vulnerable groups – such as very young children, pregnant women and the elderly – who needed special care.

We had five ambulance crews on standby for emergencies and very serious cases. We saw some women who’d had chemical irritant splashed in their faces by the Taliban while they were queueing to leave Kabul, so we treated their burns. And one lady showed up who had a whole history of health issues – a heart condition, type one diabetes and high blood pressure – but had left her medication behind. She was deteriorating badly, so we referred her to a doctor for some specialist treatment.

I was lucky to work alongside some truly inspiring volunteers, and it made think about how the defining quality of a ‘volunteer’ is that they’re the kind of person who willingly gives up their own time to help others. You don’t that unless you really care and are great at empathy. And that’s why St John people are perfectly equipped to help in these situations. We couldn’t hope to fix all the refugees’ problems – but we could listen, respond to their needs, and offer consistent, friendly support. Our support made a massive difference that week.

For me 2021 was a year of change and development in St John: the return to events, growing in my role, responding to crises. I felt a lot of personal growth and huge pride in my volunteering.

In the space of a year, I was able to volunteer over 450 hours, progressed from First Aider to Advanced First Aider and even tried my hand at unit management. It was a really successful year for me personally and for the organisation as a whole.

The more community response work we are able to do, such as frontline shifts, night-time economy, hospital volunteering, the closer to the heart of our communities we are able to serve and the greater the difference we make.

Adam Williams

Former Head of Community Operations, St John Ambulance Wednesday August 25, 2021

St John Ambulance first aiders and emergency ambulance crews at Birmingham and Manchester Airports were in the vanguard of delivering humanitarian and medical support to people evacuated from Afghanistan after the Taliban swept to power across the country in late August. Among them was Philip McCahill who, in addition to working as a primary school teacher in Smethwick, now volunteers as our West Midlands District Community Response Officer.

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~~Ask us about our first million hours of Covid response~~

By September 2021, St John had reached an important milestone in the charity’s efforts to beat the pandemic – a million hours of caring for people in hospitals, on ambulances and through the vaccination programme, as well as in other community projects. We marked the occasion with a Parliamentary reception on September 8, coinciding with the publication of a report detailing our work to date and a vision for St John at the heart of the architecture of national resilience. Our CEO, Martin Houghton-Brown picks up the story.

The first 18 months of our response to the Covid-19 pandemic showed how truly the clinically skilled volunteers and dedicated staff of St John Ambulance live our founding motto – in the service of humanity – as they stepped forward to serve the nation in our biggest peacetime deployment.

Such dedication and service has made a profound difference. It is exactly the service that was envisaged in our founding Royal Charter as a charity that, at times of emergency in peace or war, we would render aid to the sick, train technical reserves; and provide trained personnel to give assistance to central or local Government.

And I firmly believe that now is the right time to build on the contribution of our clinical volunteers to the resilience of the nation during this pandemic by formally recognising the role of St John anew.

We want to develop and maintain the additional capacity we need to stand ready as the nation’s auxiliary ambulance service; to retain and engage the thousands of new volunteers who’ve joined us during the pandemic by creating new roles and opportunities within St John for them to help their communities through first aid; and to ensure the expertise and capacity of skilled volunteers like ours is included in future planning for emergency resilience and response.

With the right support and partnership, we can build on what we’ve learnt during this pandemic to ensure a legacy of resilience for the future.

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How St John supports England’s ambulance services

Beyond vaccination, the main aspect of our Covid response – itself an extension of our annual work to relieve the winter pressures on the NHS – is our ongoing work alongside health service colleagues, including responding to 999 calls and adding capacity whenever and wherever it is needed most.

St John Ambulance crews support the NHS by:

From me, it’s just a huge thank you to St John Ambulance. I think it’s fair to say that, as a country, we have gone through the biggest health challenge in living memory. Things are getting better, but it’s not over yet.

Sajid Javid

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

They have been fantastic, and I have met many many St John Ambulance volunteers during the last 18 months who have done an absolutely astonishing job.

Boris Johnson

Prime Minister

We really are truly grateful, and support you jointly across Parliament, for all that you do.

Sir Keir Starmer

Leader of the Labour Party

You not only stepped forward – you stepped up! The Prime Minister has seen the work of St John volunteers in vaccination centres up and down the country and he sends you all a huge, great big hug and a thank you, because the reason we can hug each other is because of the vaccination programme.

Nadim Zahawi

Former Vaccines Minister

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October-December

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~~Lifesaving opportunities~~

Autumn saw a cautious return to something like normal for St John, with volunteers providing first aid cover at events, including the first teams of vaccination volunteers working behind the scenes at the Great North Run and London Marathon; delivering on our promise to ensure that vaccination had a legacy over and above our response to the initial emergency.

Meanwhile, our training team busy with courses for workplaces whose staff had missed out on learning or refreshing lifesaving skills during lockdown. Although there were growing concerns around a new Covid variant, everyone was doing their best to restore business as usual and, nearing the end of a year where vaccination had been a huge focus for our charity, St John Ambulance and partner organisations continued saving lives in other ways.

A PAcT to save lives

Created by experts in medicine, first aid and counter terrorism, Public Access Trauma (PAcT) First Aid Kits aim to increase survivability following stabbings, terror attacks and other serious incidents.

Developed as part of an ongoing partnership between St John Ambulance and citizenAID, working alongside colleagues from the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO), the kits are designed to save lives by being kept in public places, such as arenas, football stadiums and railway stations.

The content of the kits is outlined within nationally agreed standards, and includes military-grade wound dressings, tourniquets and other vital components, plus clear written and visual instructions for how to use them.

UK Government Departments and agencies, devolved administrations, the police, NHS, other medical organisations – including The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care – and charities were involved in the development and approval of the new standards, which are the first of their kind in this country.

More partnership working

October also saw us lend our voice to an open letter from UK Coaching, calling for sudden cardiac arrest training to become mandatory for all involved in the delivery of sport, as well as joining the annual Restart a Heart led by Resuscitation Council UK in partnership with BHF, British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and Yorkshire Ambulance Service. In the latter case, more than 100 St John volunteer teams ran CPR and defibrillator demos reaching almost 43,000 people.

Meanwhile, we continue to play a leading role in the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership (VCSEP) – a Government-backed coalition of over 250 organisations – and establish closer bonds with branches of St John around the world.

St John Ambulance is a charity with unique and proven capabilities in health and first aid, but the pandemic has reminded us we cannot exist in isolation, and our delivery is all the stronger for incredible network of partnerships we have nurtured and continue to develop.

The launch of these standards is an important step forward on a path towards saving more lives.

Whilst they are not mandatory, the longterm aim is for PAcT first kid kits to become as commonplace and widely accepted as public access defibrillators.

Dr Lynn Thomas

Medical Director, St John Ambulance

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~~Thank you for saving my life~~

East London GP Ian Quigley , 56, had just sprinted to the finish line of the 2021 Royal Parks Half Marathon when he felt his legs go wobbly. The next thing he knew he was in the back of an ambulance, having suffered a cardiac arrest.

St John Ambulance volunteers gave him chest compressions and used a defibrillator to restart his heart while moving him through crowds to the medical centre.

Thanks to this prompt first aid and subsequent hospital treatment, the fit father of two – for whom this was a sixth half marathon – was able to return to his family in three days and his own patients a month later.

Defibrillating someone is easy. You bare the chest, apply the pads and let the machine do its thing. The difficult thing is to have the right people with the kit at the right place and the right time. St John Ambulance had a team of people trained and equipped, gloved and ready to go at the very moment I needed help. Most people who have a cardiac arrest are not that fortunate.

I have an undying gratitude to the men and women who gave up their Sunday morning to stand around in October drizzle waiting to save someone’s life. My life. And in a way the lives of my wife and family and friends. And dog Mollie.

So thank you – to the volunteers, to the people who thought to put them there, to the people who recruited and trained them. Thank you.

From the moment you walk through the door at St John Ambulance you are trained in how to give CPR and use a defib. This was a textbook case of how immediate chest compressions and early use of a defibrillator saves lives and I hope this encourages members of the public to learn these skills. Without them, Ian would not have survived. To

be able to say that our actions, without a doubt, saved his life is indescribable.

Imogen Beresford-Bone

St John Medical Response Team volunteer

Dr Ian Quigley

Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 66

Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 67

~~Ask me about my year as a vaccinator~~

Vaccination volunteer and journalist with the Express & Star, Eleanor Lawson from West Bromwich looks back on an extraordinary year.

When I saw a Tweet saying that St John Ambulance were looking for volunteers to become vaccinators, it quickly got under my skin. Initially, I didn’t feel like the perfect candidate - for a start, I felt queasy around needles. Years of vaccinations and blood tests had done nothing to strengthen my constitution. But this wasn’t something I could ignore - I couldn’t help but imagine people asking me years from now what I’d done during the pandemic. And while life was so stagnant, the prospect of embarking on something new and exciting was impossible to walk away from.

The initial stage was quite understandably the hardest. I did three days of online training, from how vaccines create antibodies to safeguarding procedure and infection control. After passing an online interview, there was a day of in-person training, with a ridiculously talented array of volunteers there with me. This included an Olympic swimmer and a bomb disposal officer - a very humbling experience. The climax of the day was our injection training. We were all given two test injections on a fake arm pad attached to a fellow volunteer. Once I’d passed, I walked out of the building at the end of the day, coursing with adrenaline and feeling braver than I’d ever felt before.

My first few injections on real people were some of the most nerve-wracking and exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had and some of the proudest moments of my life. I was playing my part. Walking down the street in my bright green St John Ambulance t-shirt gave me a source of pride so strong I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. The role is full of challenges, but it’s been an amazing journey to get me to the point where it feels like second nature to me, and vaccinating has embedded itself into my muscle memory.

You see a whole spectrum of lives in the vaccinating pod, from the young to the old, from the confident to the scared. We all had our own awful experience of the pandemic but talking to people in the clinics was a harrowing insight into what we’d all lost. One care home worker told me that two thirds of the patients in her home had died. Others were physically or mentally frail and it was a truly emotional experience protecting them from a virus that could have killed them.

I witnessed the best of people on the job - from complete strangers acting as translators for people in the waiting room, to the army of volunteers giving up their time to protect others. In December, it was particularly prescient, as people gave up their time to protect people so they could go see their families and loved ones at Christmas. Looking back on the past twelve months, I know that it’s a year I’ll never forget.

Many of us will think about the life we could have had if not for the pandemic and the type of person we’d now be. We’ll mourn what we’ve lost. But out of the misery of the last few years, St John Ambulance gave me new experiences and forged a new strength in me that I might not have had otherwise - and I’ll always be grateful for that.

The joy of the job is of course the people. Having a patient smile or say they barely felt a thing has you walking on air for the rest of the day. When the age range for booking appointments dropped to 18, we suddenly had a larger number of nervous patients. I frequently had teenagers who really wanted to be vaccinated but were terrified of needles and would take deep breaths or listen to music while I did my job.

Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 68

Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 69

~~Another year, another race against time~~

The vaccination programme has succeeded in achieving levels of protection previously unimaginable. You were a huge part of this achievement but now we need your help again to deliver booster vaccinations at a real rate of knots. It’s going to require a Herculean effort and I am asking you personally to be a part of it by undertaking vaccinator shifts as soon as you possibly can. Through your efforts, St John Ambulance has so far helped countless people; please make sure we get the boosters delivered and save even more lives, protect our families, our communities, and our NHS. Thank you for stepping up.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam

England’s former Deputy Chief Medical Officer Message to St John vaccination volunteers, December 2021

The winter months were always at risk of being fertile ground for coronavirus infections but, unlike 2020, high levels of vaccination were providing significant defence. Then, on Saturday November 27, the first two cases of a new variant, named Omicron, were detected in the UK.

As of the beginning of December, volunteer hours on vaccination stood at around 800,000 but the figure rose sharply as we headed towards New Year. The rallying cry above resulted in shift numbers doubling in just one week.

By this point St John Ambulance was recognised as part of enabling one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the world, together with its wider work around Covid. The King’s Fund said: “Joint working between the NHS, local government and the voluntary sector was a hallmark of the vaccine roll-out, but also of much of the rest of the pandemic response at local level.”

After months where the country felt like coronavirus was in retreat and we were making tentative steps towards a new normal, fears were growing that Christmas celebrations might be cancelled for the second year in a row but, as the Prime Minister announced that all adults in England would be eligible to receive a vaccine booster before the end of January 2022, St John Ambulance rallied its vaccination volunteers for another push.

Alongside NHS staff, our selfless volunteers have worked tirelessly to protect the nation – in football stadiums, shopping centres, Christmas markets and countless other vaccination sites up and down the country. I want to give my personal thanks to everyone who has given up their time to help us beat record after record – continuing to make the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme the biggest and most successful in health service history. I’m sure the nation will join me in paying tribute to these amazing volunteers, whose efforts will undoubtedly help to save many more lives.

Amanda Pritchard

Chief Executive, NHS England

And more than two thirds (72%) of vaccination volunteers expressed an interest in volunteering opportunities with St John beyond vaccination. At the end of 2021, almost 4,000 of them had applied for a permanent volunteering role. Meanwhile tens of thousands more members of the public were lining up to become part of our next wave of vaccinators in 2022, but that’s another story…

From January 11 to December 31, St John vaccination volunteers gave almost a million hours of their time and administered millions of vaccinations in more than 650 locations across England – everywhere from The Etihad Stadium and Westminster Abbey to school car parks, care homes and pharmacies.

A critical success of the national vaccination program is the contribution of St John Ambulance. Without your support we would not have achieved the phenomenal outcomes of the programme and the many lives saved across the country. “From the volunteers who came forward, to the core St John staff and leadership team, everyone played a critical and important part in supporting vaccinations in their communities. The professionalism, collaboration and dedication of St John Ambulance’s team was outstanding, working alongside the NHS, military, and other volunteers, united in a spirit of public duty that many will look back in years to come with a real sense of pride.

Professor Mark Radford CBE, PhD, RN

Chief Nurse & Deputy Chief Nursing Officer for England

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Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 71

~~Fundraising for St John~~

“If Flora hadn’t been there and done what she did, I wouldn’t have seen my grandchildren grow up. I wouldn’t have been here.

“It’s your donations and my donations that help St John train people like Flora who save lives – mine and maybe yours, one day!”

Simon Lea

Cardiac arrest survivor

Ask us how we make our impact possible

Our supporters are amazing and have kept on supporting St John through the tough times of the last year. We are constantly inspired by the stories people tell us about why they support our work, whether it’s because they themselves have needed to use first aid and so know how important it is to have trained people in the community. Or for some it is seeing volunteers in their community. We can’t thank you enough.

Our dedicated St John supporters have again stepped up to make our work possible. This report has already shown how incredibly busy 2021 was for our operational teams, donations from supporters have helped to make sure volunteers had the training and equipment they needed to support in their communities and have funded our work with young people giving them the skills and confidence to be out supporting as well.

Our fundraising income for 2021 was £15.3m, reflecting a challenging context not just for St John but across the sector with reduced response rates due to public economic nervousness and delays in the administration of estates reducing gifts in wills. Despite the challenges across the country there were people going to extraordinary lengths to fundraise for us.

Our own fundraising teams demonstrated dedication and creativity as we pressed ahead with our fundraising strategy focusing on diversifing our income streams, including developing new and inspiring ways to engage our supporters. We have improved processes and increased our understanding of our supporters, preparing the groundwork for future growth.

Rebecca Mauger

Director of Fundraising, St John Ambulance

How we raise money

We recruit new supporters through door-to-door fundraising activity, continuing to engage with them over time to develop and grow these relationships inspiring them about the difference their donations make. We also recruit new supporters using a variety of engagement methods, including door-drops, inserts and digital tools, through social media and via our website.

We build relationships with philanthropists, trusts and foundations and companies to help them make a transformational difference in communities through their donations. In this report we describe the many ways they have been making a difference from helping to make our fleet fit for the future so that both patients and volunteers have a safe and positive experience. Funding from individuals and organisations is driving innovation in our work with young people and across how we train volunteers.

Flora and Laura ran marathons to raise vital funds for St John in 2021.

“St John do so much for us. They’ve helped roll out the vaccines, they are always by our side, and I cannot thank you enough for letting me do this run and raise some money for your amazing charity.”

Flora: The reason I decided to run for St John Ambulance is because I see all the amazing volunteers at all the events I attend and I want to give back to the lifesaving work they are doing.”

Laura: Community fundraising activity, which was suspended due to Covid restrictions during 2020, also remained largely virtual in 2021. St John volunteers, donors and supporters moved much of their planned activity online, using various giving platforms and continued to support and embrace virtual fundraising throughout the year. But, as the world began to open up again, traditional fundraising events made a welcome return and we look forward to even more in 2022.

I am super proud of all the teamwork that was involved in making our very first fun day a wonderful success. I would like to thank everyone for their help and hard work and for the many donations that we had.

This was a day that was very much needed to get our Cadets and the St Austell community involved after such a turbulent couple of years due to the pandemic, but everyone had a great day and the Cornish sun shone down on us!

Margaret Watts

St John Ambulance Cadet Unit Manager, St Austell

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Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 73

Working with fundraising agencies

Regular donations mean we can plan effectively for the future. We use a professional fundraising agency, like many other charities, to help us raise the most funds we can. For over 20 years, we have been fundraising door-to-door with Wesser Ltd, a well-established family run business, connecting us with thousands of loyal door-to-door supporters across the country. Wesser Ltd are subject to regular audits to ensure the highest level of service is provided. All fundraisers are required to read a solicitation statement to all new supporters on the door explaining the arrangement that we have with Wesser Ltd. Supporters are also given a document entitled ‘Your Direct Debit’, which gives more information as to how donating helps us over the long term followed with guidelines on how we utilise their data preferences. Due to the covid pandemic, our door-to-door fundraising paused during periods of lockdown in 2020 and 2021 as per the guidance of Government and Fundraising regulatory bodies. We also work with three payroll giving agencies, including Sharing the Caring, Hands On Payroll Giving and Payroll Giving in Action, to promote tax effective giving from people in the workplace.

Our fundraising policies

St John Ambulance is a member of the Fundraising Regulator and we ensure that across all our in-house activity and our external partners we abide by the Code of Fundraising Practice and code of conduct for face to face fundraising. Trustees monitor our practice in a standing committee of the board focussed on fundraising. As in 2020, we had no reported breaches or failings of these standards in 2021. We know the public needs to trust St John if they are going to donate money to our charity. This means having processes in place to continually monitor the work we deliver across all our fundraising and listening to feedback from current, potential and lapsed supporters. We ensure high standards by having a clear set of policies in place. These include policies for protecting vulnerable people, safeguarding and a fundraising promise, which can be found at: - - - - www.sja.org.uk/get involved/donate andfundraise/our fundraising promise/

We ensure all fundraisers and fundraising employees read and understand these documents. External fundraisers also take part in a training programme, with regular update sessions. Our aim is that our systems and procedures meet best practice, so we work closely with our internal audit, assurance and other specialist colleagues to monitor our performance.

We maintain a robust process for procuring the services of external partner agencies as well as checking the contracts we have in place. Protecting our supporters’ data is paramount so we ensure that our policies and procedures for its storage and processing meet legal requirements and our own high standards, with agreements in place with agencies we work with. We conduct regular internal audits of all teams who work with and process supporter data.

A huge thank you to everyone who supported St John Ambulance in 2021. We are grateful for your continued support because your donations make our work possible.

Feedback

We received a total of 55 enquiries about our fundraising activities in 2021, of which five were compliments and 15 were complaints (down from 30 in 2020). We have a process for responding promptly to all complaints and, where appropriate, carry out an investigation. Last year, the majority resulted in the training or retraining of the individual fundraiser.

Our complaints procedure, covering fundraising and other issues, can be found at: www.sja.org.uk/contact-us/comments-compliments-and-complaints/ This is aligned with the Fundraising Regulator’s requirements, and we monitor and respond to complaints in accordance with it. We also have robust complaints processes in place for all our external agencies to ensure we are fully compliant and that they meet the standards laid down by the regulator.

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Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 75

~~Uncertainties, opportunities, and principal risks~~

Putting people first, serving each other and our communities, inclusively and without judgement, with Humanity , Excellence , Accountability , Responsiveness and Teamwork are our HEART values.

In 2021 we continued to see unprecedented demand for Clinical, Safeguarding our frontline services in support of the NHS but as we move through 2022, we are adapting to our ‘new normal’ and to and Health & Safety living with Covid-19.

These are areas where there will always be inherent risks due to the nature of the activity St John is involved in, but improvements in how they are managed and controlled have helped mitigate them significantly.

At the time of writing this report, St John continues to have a role in vaccinating the nation through the spring booster programme, and we are now facing the challenge of addressing the impact of the pandemic on the nation’s wider health concerns. In line with our strategy, we remain committed to reaching more communities in need of effective first aid and health response.

2021 saw us develop and launch an updated Clinical Governance Framework and Strategy, as well as reviewing the structure to support this. In addition, policies and procedures were reviewed, a new clinical incident management process was implemented and process for managing and disseminating clinical alerts to relevant staff was introduced to enforce an environment of strong policies and procedures. A review of the end-to-end process for Patient Reporting Forms commenced and we will implement an electronic patient records management system as a strategic project, which will be the key step to reinforce the framework.

The uncertainty of the current global economic climate creates further challenges in 2022, led by adjusting to living with Covid, the ongoing impact of Brexit, and the war in Ukraine. Our evidence-based interventions, good governance and commitment from our people will continue to be key foundations to enable St John to respond to contribute to the health of communities. Progressing the journey of culture change we have embarked on, to further embed our HEART values and enable greater engagement across both St John people and the communities we serve will be integral to achieving this. Adopting and embedding learning through continuous improvement and innovation will also continue to be a priority for the organisation.

A positive sector benchmarking report by Excelsior Safeguarding gave us assurance on our overall approach, and the recommendations have all been implemented. St John’s work in this area over recent years has resulted in the risk being lowered. Alongside these efforts, our revised Safeguarding Policy and Procedures has been accredited by KCS Global International.

The improvements St John has made in recent years mean our charity is now well-placed to embrace opportunities and address the strategic risks outlined below.

An Internal Audit of St John’s Health & Safety was completed in Q3 of 2021, resulting in a comprehensive action plan of improvement areas which are being tracked and reported monthly; as of January 2022, 50% of the action plan was already complete. Meanwhile, the appointment of new external facilities management providers (Bellrock and Churchill) is helping to identify and rectify issues, as well as improving tracking of assets and hazards across our estates, and monitoring of remedial actions. There is a need to strengthen the team to support health and safety, as well as develop the oversight as part of the new Quality & Safety Directorate, which will help ensure this inherent risk is robust.

Above all, we know that St John people make our charity work. Without our dedicated volunteers and staff, we cannot deliver critical services vital to the life of our nation and support the health needs of local communities. The need to support our people through times of challenge, opportunity, innovation and change is at the heart of everything we do.

Change in perceived risk in last 12 months

Key Risks Summary

h Decreased

Recruitment and retention

St John culture

With the easing of coronavirus restrictions in 2021, businesses set out to resume pre-pandemic activities; this led to significantly increased levels of recruitment nationally, but all are facing difficult market conditions.

Increased dialogue with our people, together with learnings around their experiences through Covid, has driven St John to embark on our Values in Action culture change programme. This is a key strategic priority that ensures our HEART values are central to everything we do at St John.

For St John, recruitment challenges are impacting our employee and volunteer workforce, including our ability to retain people. Re-engagement challenges are affecting the volunteer workforce critical to the delivery of our frontline services. For example, the pandemic has led to some of our volunteers securing opportunities elsewhere or reassessing how they spend their free time, whilst aspects of St John activity were paused.

We have set up a new infrastructure to ensure we hear the voices of our people clearly and act quickly to implement changes that are needed. That included our Leaders with HEART workstream, which focused on ensuring our employed and volunteer managers were provided with the skills and resources they needed to set the right tone and model behaviours in line with our values.

We have responded by reviewing our approaches to recruitment and retention, opportunities to grow and develop, reward and recognition, and our inclusion offer. This led us to undertake several immediate actions to improve the experience for St John people. Over the course of 2022, we will continue to progress this work – taking recommendations from further commissioned reviews which will consult widely – including delivering new People, and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion strategies.

In 2022 we’ve launched Heartbeat, a 15-month campaign for actively engaging the organisation with our work on culture change and improvement. We will continue to embed the initiatives we have developed and introduced new models, ensuring we continually seek feedback on the success of these through tangible measures and amending our approach based on our learnings as we move forward.

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Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 77

Wellbeing

Covid-19 impacted the emotional and mental health of the nation and, as restrictions eased, anxiety around resuming pre-pandemic activities and returning to workplaces was natural. St John reviewed and improved its wellbeing offer and resources for its people, then ensured these were promoted, including through the introduction of new Wellbeing Supporters across the organisation. Regular pulse surveys were used to review how our people were feeling, paying attention to variances, to ensure specific needs were addressed as required.

In 2022, with Covid-19 restrictions fully lifting, we remain mindful of how people feel as they return to workplaces. We are due to launch our Flexible Working and Hybrid Working policies, to ensure we have arrangements in place to support the transition and that individuals benefit from increased closer working and collaboration with their teams. A Wellbeing and Mental Fitness strategy is also in development to consider the needs of our people beyond Covid-19 and will be a three-year initiative to ensure wellbeing continues to be prioritised at St John.

Financial sustainability

Whilst St John has been integral to the nation’s response to the pandemic, the effects of ongoing lockdowns, restrictions and the economic downturn adversely impacted the charity’s commercial income streams. In 2021 we continued to take the action required to manage the charity’s financial position, with key interventions leading to a favourable outturn at the end of the year:

These measures were supported by our portfolio of business and digital transformation to increase efficiencies and create opportunities for growth, as part of balancing short-term pressures with the need for long-term investment.

Although the uncertainty relating to Covid-19 and market confidence is reducing as we enter 2022, there is increased concern regarding the current economic and political outlook. We will continue to manage and streamline our costs this year, reviewing our business models to seek opportunities for further improvement. Crucially, we will be developing our strategy for 2023 onwards, ensuring our investment decisions support our mission to deliver an excellent first aid and health response.

Data maturity

St John recognises that insight is key to enabling the organisation to make evidence-based decisions to deliver its strategy in the most efficient, effective, and timely manner. Our data must be accurate, reliable, and secure, ensuring the rights of individuals are protected where personal data is involved.

In 2021, the organisation developed and launched its Data strategy and formed the leadership team to deliver this. A new Data Protection policy, training and champion network to promote awareness and compliance across the organisation were launched. A Digital Transformation was prioritised under our Change Portfolio, ensuring the right technological solutions are being delivered to improve our data maturity and develop our insight capability accordingly. These avenues of work will continue to progress over 2022 in line with our agreed roadmaps.

Our approach to risk management

St John manages risks as an integral part of how the charity operates. Our new leadership design enables us to be more forward looking, with our Executive Committee (ExCo) focused on strategy development to meet future need and threats to delivery of our mission and our Executive Leadership Team (ELT) responsible for identifying major strategic risks to which the charity is exposed and establishing controls and actions to manage them.

Risk assessments and risk registers are in place and regularly reviewed by our leadership teams, with oversight and recommendations from our Executive Risk Review Panel, to ultimately report to Audit and Risk Committee and the Boards of Trustees. In 2022 we are progressing our review of risk appetite across strategic risks with our committees for their endorsement, with a view to seeking approval from our Boards of Trustees thereafter.

The Governance Directorate continues to have responsibility to ensure the charity is managed in accordance with Charity Commission regulations and good practice guidance. As part of that directorate, the Risk and Internal Audit departments, with the oversight of the Audit and Risk Committee, provides assurance on the effectiveness of the risk management process and associated mitigation strategies and controls, focusing on the areas of greatest risk.

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~~Plans for 2022~~

In 2022, we are measuring performance delivery in the following four areas:

h People and Culture - supporting all St John people to thrive.

Alongside our exciting plans for 2022, we will develop our new five-year strategy for 2023 to 2027.

2022 strategy map

----- Start of picture text -----
Inspiring
Young people at Leading
community
the heart Standards
response
Customer /
Public
Financial surplus Supporter
engagement
engagement
Representative Open, safe and Capacity to
Best experience
of communities supportive deliver
Digital Learning
Data & Insight
Transformation Organisation
impact
Operational
Financial & engagement
culture
People &
development
Organisational
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~~What’s next for St John?~~

The extraordinary challenges of the last two years have highlighted the deep-rooted strengths of St John, as well as some longstanding weaknesses that we must address, and – within all of that – our direction of travel is becoming increasingly clear. Our priority is to build a strategy for the future that takes us beyond the Covid-19 pandemic and builds on its legacy for our amazing charity.

We have always known that first aid saves lives but we are now recognising the breadth of what that means in full; from supporting physical and mental health, to delivering lifesaving treatments including vaccinations, along with our ability to educate at both scale and pace – evidenced by our rapid training of 27,000 new vaccination volunteers. These abilities to deliver, educate and – as individuals and as a charity – learn from our experiences will carry us forward into our strategic planning for the next five years.

In the meantime, success in 2022 and the years to come will rely on a number of factors. In particular, we will deepen our relationships with the NHS, building on them in a spirit of continued partnership. The reach of our youth programmes must grow; not only in terms of greater numbers of young people engaging in them but also – as we’re already seeing through our work on projects like Young Responders and Health Citizens – widening our scope to include teenagers and young adults who experience greater vulnerabilities and have limited opportunities.

Alongside that, we will return our first aid training operations to pre-pandemic levels and more, and – for the first time – we will begin to understand more about the patient experience when they are treated and cared for by St John people.

Organisationally, we’re making significant investment in our technological transformation, including commissioning a new customer relationship management approach. And we are building on our Values in Action programme to improve the culture at St John – including our Heartbeat initiative and new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy – all of which we expect to improve our ability to retain volunteers and staff.

Finally, looking at our finances, we have set ourselves an ambitious budget that will undoubtedly be challenging but is, nonetheless, an important step in our recovery from the pandemic.

As we end this look back on St John’s achievements in 2021, we should all feel proud of the amazing things we have done as St John people – from each individual patient we’ve cared for, to the enormous impact of our collective efforts on vaccination and everything in between. We are standing on the cusp of a bright new future for our charity at a time when our motto is as relevant as ever:

Pro Utilitate Hominum – in the service of humanity

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Finances and governance

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~~Statement of public benefit~~

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Financial review

In preparing this report, the trustees have compiled with the Companies Act 2006 and the Statement of Recommended Practice - Accounting and Reporting by Charities, which incorporates the requirements of the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (‘FRS 102’) (‘the Charities SORP (‘FRS 102’)).

Basis of accounting

The financial statements of St John Ambulance, prepared using the Charities SORP (FRS 102), are attached to this report.

Annually, the trustees review the key accounting policies to ensure that they continue to be in accordance with the requirements of the Charities SORP (FRS 102) and with best accounting practice. The accounting policies applied by St John Ambulance are detailed within note 1.

The accounting policy in relation to dilapidations has been amended during the year, to include a full provision based on a review of all leasehold properties. This has been reflected in a prior year adjustment to the comparative results for the year ended 31 December 2020, which is described in note 37 to these financial statements. No other significant changes have been made to the accounting policies compared to those used in the year ended 31 December 2020.

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~~Financial review of the year~~

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~~Financial review of the year, continued~~

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~~Funds and reserves policies~~

•

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~~Going concern~~

~~Trustees’ responsibilities statement~~

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~~Structure, governance and management~~

Organisational structure

Governance

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Management

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Management, continued

Section 172 statement

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Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting

Section 172 statement, continued

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~~Independent auditor’s report~~

To the member of St John Ambulance

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Financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2021

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Statement of financial activities

As at 31 December 2021

Company number: 3866129

Balance sheet

(Incorporating an income and expenditure account) for the year ended 31 December 2021

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For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

Cash flow statement

Notes to the accounts

For the year ended 31 December 2021

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Notes to the accounts

Notes to the accounts

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

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Notes to the accounts

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

Notes to the accounts

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Notes to the accounts

Notes to the accounts

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

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Notes to the accounts

Notes to the accounts

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

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Notes to the accounts

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

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Notes to the accounts

Notes to the accounts

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Notes to the accounts

Notes to the accounts

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

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Notes to the accounts

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Notes to the accounts

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Notes to the accounts

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Notes to the accounts

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Notes to the accounts

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

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Notes to the accounts

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Royal patrons, trustees, management and committees

For the year ended 31 December 2021, continued

Notes to the accounts

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Royal patrons, trustees, management and committees

Royal patrons, trustees, management and committees

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Principal places of business and advisers

Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 136

Annual Report and Accounts 2021 | 137

@stjohnambulance sent me a pin to thank Got this badge and card in the post from my me for my help with the covid-19 vaccination wonderful colleagues @StJohnAmbulance. I’ve had programme. I did it to help me get out of the to most rewarding, fulfilling time working with you. house and feel useful. It has been a fantastic Ladi Dairo experience, I have met so many lovely people, some I now call my friends!

Volunteering as a #COVID19 #Vaccinator has been incredible and the weekend teams are just awesome.

Barbara Guinn

What a wonderful thing to have come home to yesterday! St John really is one big family, and after growing by more than 20,000, the connection and support between everyone, of all roles, has never been stronger!

Janis Pereira

This was a lovely surprise, thank you @stjohnambulance. And thanks for your massive ongoing contribution to the vaccination programme.

Jake McCandless

Dominic Raymont

After thousands of hours of frontline volunteering and many hours enabling others to volunteer I’m extremely proud to get this little gift in the post from @stjohnambulance. #AskMe what I did during the COVID19 pandemic.

It has been a privilege to support and comfort people who are receiving their vaccine in these uncertain times.

Naomi Guthrie

Luke Simmonds

I’m proud to have trained vaccinators, vaccinated 100s & supported the NHS as ambulance crew.

Ali Booker

Thank you @stjohnambulance for giving me the opportunity to give back. I have enjoyed every minute of my volunteering experience and look forward to many more chances.

Monica Merino

Thank you @stjohnambulance and to my fellow colleagues who helped and supported. It’s not about the tests we face in this world, but how we respond to them.

Sazeda Patel

It’s the little things that really do mean a lot, I’ll

be wearing my pin with pride. Everything done throughout the pandemic with @stjohnambulance was done just because it needed doing.

A heart-warming feeling to have received this letter and pin badge this weekend. A great way to recognise the impact of supporting @stjohnambulance.

Oliver Shaw

Thank you @stjohnambulance for this thoughtful gesture, which is hugely appreciated. It’s been an honour to play a small part as a volunteer vaccinator and I’ll never forget the experience.

Nikolai Foster

Thank you to everyone who dedicates their time for others. I’m looking forward to getting involved more in 2022.

Ali Booker

Muchly appreciated @stjohnambulance for the recognition of the support given during the covid-19 pandemic.

Callum Dixon Roberts

Dee Callaghan

v. St John St John Ambulance 27 St John's Lane Clerkenwell London ECIM 4BU Ambulance 020 7324 4000 sJa.org.uk O St John Ambulance 2022127 St John's Lane, London ECIM 4BU Registered charity no.1077265/1