Is your Defibrillator registered?

At our May priority setting meeting, Chiltern Community Forum was alerted to an important issue relating to registration of defibrillators. A check on the smartphone app which provides a map showing locations of registered defibrillators revealed that a large proportion – perhaps 30%-50% – are not registered.

This is because organisations – charity, village hall, school, shop, company etc – have not registered their device with the ambulance service. This analysis has been confirmed by the administrator of South Central Ambulance Service.

Sadly this means that in the event of a person suffering a cardiac arrest and calling 999, the ambulance service pending arrival of the paramedics would not be able to direct the person assisting a patient to go and get the nearest defibrillator. Worse still, as most devices require a password code to access the box containing the device, if the ambulance service does not know about the device they will not be able to pass the code to the person calling them.

How to register your Defibrillator

We would encourage all organisations responsible for a defibrillator to check whether its device is registered; and if not, to contact defib@scas.nhs.uk to do so. Once your device is registered, the information will be available to all NHS call takers, as well as being put on the app.

Downloading the Smartphone App

At present, the Android version of the app is not available to download, but it is hoped that it will soon be available again. The iPhone version can be downloaded through the Apple Store. Search for Save a Life – there are a number of similar apps, so look for the red heart logo.

You can click on the image below to download a PDF flyer from South Central Ambulance Service. This includes information about the smartphone app, links to more information on defibrillators, and contact information.

Click image below for PDF version of flyer

With thanks to Chris Brown for drawing our attention to this issue.