Norfolk charity says defibs must be registered to the national circuit
Work featuring East of England Ambulance found that just one in ten defibs are being used when needed - despite many being around
A charity from Norfolk says those putting out defibrillators must register the devices to the national circuit - so members of the public can use them.
It's after work featuring East of England Ambulance found that just one in ten defibs are being used when needed- despite many being around.
""It takes about 5 minutes online"
Jayne Biggs set up the group 'Heart 2 Heart Norfolk' back in 2016, after her daughter suffered a cardiac arrest.
She says due-diligence is vital:
"The problems is that some people put defibrillators out there and they don't register them on the circuit. That means that people can be standing at a cabinet, they dial 999 and the operator will not have the code to give it out.
"You don't just put a defibrillator out there. You look after it, you check it and you clean the cabinet and make sure it's working.
"It takes about 5 minutes online to register it to the national circuit. All you need is the serial number, the location, dates of the pads - and as soon as you have uploaded all of those details, it's live instantly. I had one of Prince of Wales Road in Norwich, which went active at 4pm and by 9pm that night it went out on a 999."
"Shows you how much education is needed"
"The survival rate in the street, in places like the Netherlands and Seattle in the US is 54%. The survival rate in the UK, is 9%. So that shows you how much education is needed and why children need to be taught about it."
"We have also expanded our community first responder and staff responder schemes"
Dr Simon Walsh, Medical Director at the East of England Ambulance Service Trust said:
“The East of England Ambulance Service Trust has been working with The Circuit to maximise the number of maintained Public Access Defibrillators on our Computer Aided Despatch system, and since September 2022 we have added a further 1,534 PADs to the database.
“We have also expanded our community first responder and staff responder schemes with the aim of increasing the likelihood that someone will be able to locate the nearest PAD to a patient in cardiac arrest. We continue to work closely with the Essex Cardiothoracic Centre and other partner organisations in the East of England to improve outcomes of cardiac arrests in our communities.”
The study was funded by the East of England Cardiac Network.