Heart attack app: Plans revealed to train locals as first responders
It's hoped a new plan to train people across Greater Manchester as cardiac first responders will save lives
People in communities across Greater Manchester, and the country are being encouraged to volunteer as cardiac responders, to react to heart attacks in their own community.
The new drive by The Resuscitation Council UK hopes to save lives by reducing response times and boosting survival chances.
By offering free CPR training and defibrillation awareness to people in town cities and rural areas, the RCUK hopes to build a team of trained responders who will be able to react, when alerted by an app, before the emergency services arrive.
The system will work in collaboration with The Ambulance Service and the GoodSAM app, which is a platform to alert people of a cardiac arrest in their area.
Founder of charity Restart The Heart, Sarah Jones, gives training across Greater Manchester, she said:
"The app can help a lot of people. If someone is in distress and needs help then I would be more than willing to sign up for it.
"We all know how busy the ambulance crew can be."
In the UK over 70,000 people suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest each year. But the survival rate is less than one in ten.
With the chances of survival falling by ten percent for every minute a patient doesn't get CPR or defibrillation, it is hoped that cardiac responders will save lives.
Sarah added:
"The more people that sign up to this app, it gives anybody who needs help more chance of survival.
"It gives people hope that if they ever got into trouble that they know someone would be willing to help and they would only just be round the corner."
She continued, saying that it would be vital get as any to sign up as possible:
"It would save peoples lives. The app is all well and good but at the end of the day the app is only as good as the people who want to use it.
"Its getting people to be willing to help. The more people that do it the more significant the app will be and the more lives people will save."