North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) is supporting Restart a Heart Day, a global initiative launched to raise awareness of the importance of learning CPR to help someone who has suffered a cardiac arrest.
Restart a Heart Day
Restart a Heart Day takes place on 16 October each year, and NEAS runs events throughout the month. The campaign aims to increase public awareness of cardiac arrests and increase the number of people trained in lifesaving CPR.
NEAS will be delivering events, and training 160 people in schools and colleges in Stockton, Redcar, and Billingham. Currently, NEAS has trained 2,250 adults and children in lifesaving skills.
Better chance of survival
The earlier we act when someone is having a cardiac arrest, the better a person’s chance of surviving"
Alex Mason, community development officer at the Trust, said, “Anyone can be affected by a sudden cardiac arrest at any time. It’s important to quickly call 999, perform CPR and use a defibrillator. The earlier we act when someone is having a cardiac arrest, the better a person’s chance of surviving."
“For an ambulance crew attending a cardiac arrest, knowing there’s someone there cane to support the patient while the crew is traveling is a great reassurance. It’s heartening for them to know the community is doing their bit in the chain of survival."
The Circuit
"We have invested in the community offering partial funding in some areas to increase the number of public access defibrillators as well as providing training so that we can help increase the chance of people surviving.”
NEAS joined the British Heart Foundation’s The Circuit, a national database of defibrillators. This means health advisors and dispatchers dealing with emergency 999 and urgent 111 calls have access to over 60,000 defibrillators UK-wide.
Visible nearest defibrillator
Over 30,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest in the hospital in the UK every year
Being part of The Circuit means that when calls are taken by NEAS from different parts of the country the details of the nearest defibrillator are visible and so NEAS can ask someone on the scene of an incident to retrieve it to help save a person’s life.
Over 30,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest out of the hospital in the UK every year, with less than one in 10 people surviving. The number of cardiac arrests is around 2,100 for the North East, with just one person in 16 surviving.
Bystander CPR
Millions of people in the UK won’t have had the opportunity to learn this key lifesaving skill putting lives at risk.
Bystander CPR increases survival by two to three times, however, it is only delivered in one in five incidents. If we achieved the same survival rates as countries like Norway (25%) – an additional 100 lives could be saved every year.
