Key individuals

The patron of Sandpiper Trust since its inception has been Gavin Hastings.^[5][1] Hastings has hosted many events for The Sandpiper trust and continues to generously devote his time and energy to supporting the Trust.

The trust has four trustees; Penny Dickson, Aly Dickson, Claire Maitland and Caroline Ross-Stewart. It also has two medical advisors, to ensure they are able to facilitate rural immediate medical care to the best of their abilities, these are: Dr Ewen McLeod and Dr Ben Price.^{[citation needed]}

Charitable objectives

Sandpiper Trust has four core objectives. Firstly to work towards the relief of the suffering (from illness or injury) of people in Scotland through the provision of immediate medical care, secondary to facilitate the advancement of the study of immediate medical care through the provision of education and training across Scotland. Thirdly the provision of medical equipment to facilitate the first objective and finally, relieving human suffering through the promotion of medical research.^[6]

Fundraising

Sandpiper Bag

Sandpiper Trust has developed the internationally respected^[who?] Sandpiper Bag, which is used across Scotland by BASICS Scotland responders,^[15] in Australia through the newly formed charity Sandpiper Australia^[3][16] and is the official immediate care bag for the Faculty of Prehospital Care examinations at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.^[17]

Each bag contains over 50 items of life-saving medical equipment,^[18][4] these are organised into removable pouches, allowing them to be passed out to different team members to facilitate parallel working in acute situations.^[19] To date over a thousand Sandpiper Bags have been distributed across Scotland and beyond.^[20] The 1000th bag was presented by Elizabeth II in 2016.^[21]

Sandpiper Emergency Medicines Pouch

In 2021 The Sandpiper Trust funded and in conjunction with BASICS Scotland, developed the Emergency Medicines pouch for active BASICS Scotland volunteer responders.^[22] The drug pouch contains an array of medicines required for the initial management and stabilisation of critically unwell patients across rural Scotland.

Wildcat Project

The Sandpiper Wildcat Project was a research programme^[23] focussing on saving lives after out of hospital cardiac arrest, through optimising the chain of survival in rural Grampian, Scotland.^[24][25][26] The driving hypothesis being that providing enhanced training and equipment a team of volunteer community first responders, who are then targeted to areas where Scottish Ambulance Service response times can be prolonged would lead to earlier, effective resuscitation, hopefully resulting in improved patient outcomes.^[27] The project won the Blue Light Hero award at the Pride of Aberdeen awards in 2017.^[28][29]

COVID-19 pandemic response

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the trust distributed over 700 pulse oximeters to remote and rural GP practices throughout Scotland, to aid with the diagnosis of, and subsequent monitoring of patients affected by COVID-19. These have been used in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, Coll, Arran, Tomintoul, Killin, Callander, Strachur, Mull, Galloway, Kenmay, Skye and other practices throughout Grampian.^[30]