Can you imagine trying to save a drowning victim in a river by running to the nearest life saving equipment to find it is in a locked cabinet, where you have to call 999 and ask for a code to open it?  By the time you had been connected to the operator and they had given you the code the likelihood is the victim would have drowned.

This is the very problem for a different sort of lifesaving equipment increasingly being placed across the UK.  Over the past 15 years there has been an excellent increase in the placement of public access automated external defibrillators (AED’s) across the UK which we fully support and encourage.  However, there is an increasing problem that many are being kept in locked cabinets which delays the time to ‘early defibrillation’; the most critical element in improving survival from sudden cardiac arrest.

This has been highlighted by a recent case in Leicestershire where the rescuer calling 999 was unable to get an AED out of a locked cabinet to help a casualty in cardiac arrest. (http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Emergency-kit-accessible/story-20895980-detail/story.html).   Whether the AED would have made a difference to the patients outcome is debatable, but the reality is it is impossible to comment as an AED was never attached in this instance until the arrival of the ambulance – by which time the patients heart rhythm might have changed.

Considering in excess of 85% of out of hospital cardiac arrests commence in a heart rhythm that is treatable with a shock by an AED, but the chance of that shock working reduces by 7-10% per minute, the vital element is TIME.  The quicker an AED is attached to a patient in cardiac arrest the quicker a shock can be given (if indicated) to treat the arrhythmia causing the cardiac arrest.  Time should not be wasted in having to be connected to the ambulance service and be given an access code which then has to be entered to access lifesaving equipment.

The Resuscitation Council UK quite clearly state that AED’s should not be kept in locked cabinets (http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/AEDsecst.htm) and we fully support this statement.

We regularly advise clients on the placement of AED’s and our risk assessment tools can help you predict a casualty’s survival from a shockable cardiac arrest at your site.  Our advice always includes appropriate placement of emergency equipment.  Generally we recommend that lifesaving equipment should be kept in visible locations, ideally in unlocked, but alarmed, cabinets.  This way the equipment is visible to all to see – in a similar way to other lifesaving equipment such as fire extinguishers, life belts etc.

For any advice or to ask a question about this blog please contact us at info@ramcltd.com