A PRIVATE ambulance will be on dedicated standby to provide emergency care for severely drunk students during their first week in York.

The University of York and York University Students Union (YUSU) are launching a new Alcohol Recovery Centre for Freshers’ Week.

Private paramedic company YorMed provide an emergency ambulance throughout the first week of the new term.

The ambulance will deal exclusively with calls relating to students who are heavily intoxicated. The project has been launched as safety in the city, particularly of young people around the city’s rivers, is high on local agendas.

A spokesman for YUSU said: “Upon finding such a student, ‘persons in authority’ such as police officers, doorstaff, NHS staff and NightSafe volunteers will be able to call the ARC and arrange for the student to be collected.

“After being carefully examined by paramedics, the student can be transferred to the ARC to ‘sleep off’ the effects of drink under the supervision of registered healthcare professionals such as nurses. Should a patient be found injured, they can still be transferred to the A&E department as usual.”

Jemima Busby, YUSU’s welfare and community officer, said: “We are really pleased to be working in partnership with the University to deliver not only schemes to discourage binge drinking but also to keep students safe if they do drink too much as well as reducing disturbance to other residents and pressure on local services such as A&E, which can be swamped with students during Freshers’ week, as well as ensuring the safety of our members.”

YUSU student volunteers will also take part in the NightSafe scheme, similar to Street Angels, and will patrol the city centre on student club nights offering water, sweets, first aid and blankets to those who may be a bit worse for wear, and flip flops for those who have lost their shoes or are struggling to walk in inappropriate footwear. They will have radios so they can be called to incidents elsewhere.

YUSU activities officer Chris Wall said: “Nightsafe is an exciting proactive approach to safety from YUSU, that is unique to our Union across the UK. It’s fantastic that we’re strengthening relationships between the City of York as well as giving a fantastic amount of personal development for our students. We look forward to protecting and aiding our students and other members of the local community.”