There are around 30,000 sudden cardiac arrests outside hospital in the UK each year, with a survival rate of less than one in ten. I know that using a defibrillator within three minutes of a cardiac arrest can improve a person’s chance of survival by as much as 70 per cent.
For this reason, the NHS Long Term Plan stated an ambition to establish a national network of community first responders and Automated External Defibrillators will help save up to 4,000 lives each year by 2028. Under the last Government, the Automated External Defibrillators Fund was launched to provide £1 million to expand the number of defibrillators in community spaces across England.
I hope that expanding access to defibrillators will remain a priority so that we can further prevent and reduce deaths from sudden cardiac arrest.
Better provision of defibrillators and increasing the number of people trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation could help save more lives of those who have a cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting.
The Circuit - a national database of defibrillators - has been set up by the British Heart Foundation and other charities to help ambulance services to identify the nearest defibrillator during an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. I strongly encourage organisations to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of their first-aid equipment, so that more lives can be saved in future.
My understanding is that the Government has no plans to remove VAT on AEDs. Ministers have said that some VAT reliefs are provided to aid the purchase of defibrillators, as when a defibrillator is purchased with funds provided by a charity and then donated to an eligible body no VAT is charged.