Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, met with Judy O’Sullivan and Susannah Kerr from the British Heart Foundation to discuss the charity’s National Defibrillator Network and working together to increase survival rates from out of hospital cardiac arrests in the East Riding.
The National Defibrillator Network is a BHF campaign and programme that intends to register all defibrillators in the UK, and the charity has worked with Microsoft on innovative technology that gives ambulance services immediate access to this defibrillator location information.
Graham commented: “This may come as a surprise, but there isn’t actually a database listing all of the defibrillators in the UK meaning that many are unknown to ambulance services.
“Given that every minute without defibrillation or CPR reduces a person’s chances of surviving a cardiac arrest by 10%, knowledge about the nearest defibrillator can be the difference between life and death. The National Defibrillator Network is a pioneering project and, following my meeting with the BHF, I have contacted the Yorkshire Ambulance Service about this important programme.”
Graham is the Chair of the Community Access Defibrillators for East Yorkshire (CADEY) campaign. In May, he convened a roundtable of cardiac specialists, regional healthcare managers and other high-level stakeholders to identify weaknesses in the Chain of Survival following an out of hospital cardiac arrest. Survival rates in the East Riding are troublingly low, and it was made crystal clear that defibrillator blackspots, as well as a lack of public training and confidence in performing CPR, were major factors.
Graham commented: “The BHF National Defibrillator Network aligns perfectly with the goals of the CADEY campaign. Not only will there be a push to get the public to register defibrillators, the BHF will also be working to identify the areas with the lowest survival rates. This information combined means we’ll know exactly where we need to install defibrillators and I’ll be working with parish councils and community groups in my constituency to raise funds for just that.”
