Corporate Social Responsibility

There are nearly 37 million vehicles on the UK roads. On average over 5 people are killed everyday with 21,600 every year being seriously injured. If this was a disease it would be considered an epidemic. These statistics cost the UK economy £16.3 bn every year. In the work place the legal requirement to have a first aider has saved countless lives and serious injuries. But there is no such law or requirement for our roads.

vGroup is very much focused on health and safety and association with saving lives and reducing injury is a good fit for vGroup as well as a personal mission to save lives with a direct correlation to reducing the burden to industry, families and the NHS.

Driver First Assist is a not for profit organisation comprising drivers who have been trained to provide life saving first aid and manage the scene at a road traffic collision (RTC), prior to the arrival of the emergency services. DFA has been created with the help of the Police, Ambulance and Fire and Rescue services, with whom we continue to work in partnership. Every day, victims of RTCs die needlessly because individuals immediately at the scene lack the ability to administer basic first aid.

Many deaths occur from little more than a blocked airway, a condition that, with the right training, is relatively easy to treat. Death from a blocked airway occurs in about 4 minutes, while the target time for an ambulance is 8 minutes. It’s not difficult to see why 50% of RTC deaths occur before the emergency services arrive and how DFA members can make a vital difference in these first crucial moments. As a nation, we invest a great deal in accident prevention, but we could do much more to improve and target resources to assist initially when incidents occur. That’s why we created Driver First Assist.

We have been fortunate to lobby Parliament for an £80,000 support and with a mission to train 100,000 drivers we will save the economy £1.3bn per year and of course a lot of family suffering.

The proposition is fully transferable to every world market, where costs to low income economies of road deaths and serious injury has a disproportionate effect on their economies. On a world basis 1.3 million people are killed every year and 50 million injured costing the world $518bn or 2% of global GDP. This rises to over 20% of GDP for lower income economies. DFA’s opportunity to make the difference to the UK and the rest of the world is a life time of work. It clearly illustrates the opportunity for driver and public training and the sales of safety packs globally.

vGroup International understands the importance of balancing a profitable business with our wider responsibilities to society and the environment.

vGroup International is finding the right balance between maintaining financial performance, and a company’s responsibilities to its people, customers, communities and the challenge of environmental change. This is a challenge shared by all businesses the world over and is aligned with our commitment to continuous improvement in all areas of the business.

The key to our success lies in our staff. It is our people who make up the company. It is our people who make the decisions. It is our people who are constantly striving to find better ways of working and to provide value to our clients, strengthening the vGroup International reputation as the market-leader.