Emergency services and charities are urging businesses across Wales which own defibrillators to register their devices on a groundbreaking national database called The Circuit.
The Circuit’s aim is to map all public access defibrillators, so that when someone has a cardiac arrest, 999 call handlers can direct bystanders to the nearest registered defibrillator while they wait for the ambulance to arrive.
- there are around 2,800 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) in Wales each year, but just 1 in 20 people survive.
- every minute without cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation reduces the chance of survival by up to 10 per cent
- early CPR and defibrillation can more than double the chances of survival
- it’s estimated that public-access defibrillators (PADs) are used in less than 10 per cent of OHCAs across the UK
To improve survival rates, the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Resuscitation Council UK (RCUK) St John Ambulance, and Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), have come together to roll out The Circuit: the national defibrillator network.
For further information and to register your defibrillator visit https://www.thecircuit.uk/