Paramedic's act of support to help Burnley’s homeless grows into national Operation Blue Light Blanket campaign

Operation Blue Light Blanket is the brainchild of Andrew Ormerod. It aims to put warm sleeping bags and essential cold-weather items directly into the hands of those who need them via blue light services and frontline support staff such as paramedics, police officers, fire-fighters, rescue teams and outreach workers who encounter people sleeping rough every day.

Andrew, a paramedic from Padiham, has personally funded sleeping bags for the Burnley-based Inspire group and homeless communities across the town and other parts of the county.

But now he wants to see the Operation Blue Light Blanket campaign expanded beyond Lancashire and rolled out nationwide.

With rising homelessness and increasingly cold winters, frontline teams are frequently meeting people with nowhere safe or warm to sleep.

While emergency services do what they can, they are often limited in the material help they can offer.

Operation Blue Light Blanket enables those on the front line to supply high-quality sleeping bags and ‘keep-warm’ kits. They therefore provide an immediate, practical response when they encounter someone sleeping rough or people who cannot – or choose not – to access shelters, hostels or traditional social support services.

Andrew said: “As a front line paramedic, I’ve knelt on cold pavements beside people who have absolutely nothing, ragged old coats, no blanket, nowhere to go and a cardboard bed.

"You finish the 999 call, you document it, you make the referral, and you drive away knowing they’re still out there in the freezing cold.

“I’m not afraid to confess I have given a hot lunch and hospital blankets to these people before on the streets. It’s the least I can offer them before I go back to my warm home.

"Operation Blue Light Blanket is my way of changing that. This initiative is about dignity as much as it is about warmth.

"If we can equip paramedics, police officers, fire crews and outreach workers with something as simple as a warm sleeping bag to immediately give to them, then in that moment we’re not just treating a call, we’re treating a human being with compassion.

“My hope is that together, we can build a seasonal and responsive community and professional networks, we can ensure that no front line worker has to walk away from someone on the street without at least being able to offer them warmth and a little bit of hope.”

Andrew is also the owner of Whalley-based firm CPDme, a mobile app and web dashboard which enables health and social care professionals to document their continuing professional development.

CPDme is inviting individuals, organisations, trusts and corporate partners to support Operation Blue Light Blanket through donations and collaboration.

Funds raised will be used to buy sleeping bags and keep warm kits, co-ordinate distribution through blue light and support services and expand the initiative beyond Lancashire to other regions across the UK.

Further details and donation options can be found on the Operation Blue Light Blanket campaign page via the CPDme website and social channels at https://www.CPDme.com/bluelightblanket