Ambulance Service makes a Community Push for Resuscitation

North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) is calling for schools, community groups and organisations region wide to register for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training from staff and volunteers as part of the national Restart a Heart initiative, taking place in October.

The deadline for people to register for training on Restart a Heart Day is Friday 20 September 2019. You can register by following this link: http://www.neas.nhs.uk/get-involved/restart-a-heart/organisation-registration.aspx

Recent research suggests that over a quarter (27%) of adults living in the North East of England wouldn’t perform CPR if they saw someone suffer a cardiac arrest.  In a bid to beat last year’s figures, NEAS is looking to reach in excess of 4,000 people during the month. 

Restart a Heart is an annual campaign to raise awareness of the importance of CPR, which will see more than 200,000 people trained in life saving CPR, UK wide. The campaign, which is now in its 6^th year, was launched after figures revealed that less than one in 10 people in Britain survive an out of hospital cardiac arrest, due to low bystander CPR rates. In countries where CPR is taught in schools, as many as one in four survive.

CPR is very important to save someone’s life as the time it takes for the emergency services to arrive, can mean the difference between life and death. Brain tissue starts to die within three minutes after the heart stops, due to a lack of oxygen. Early CPR can more than double a person’s chances of survival and can buy the time needed before the ambulance resource arrives to provide advanced care.

Over 30,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest out of hospital in the UK every year.   Currently, less than one in 10 survive. A defibrillator can only restart a heart after it has gone into cardiac arrest. The earlier a patient can receive CPR and a shock from a defibrillator, the greater their chance of survival.

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 week, the equivalent of approximately 5,000 every year.  

Alex Mason, community development officer at NEAS, said: “There is nothing more disheartening to an ambulance crew than arriving on scene to a patient where CPR is not in progress, when it could have been.

“CPR is incredibly easy to deliver but we understand people don’t always find it easy to start CPR, either because they’re not sure how or think they may hurt the person. However, the chances of survival and the quality of life thereafter are vastly increased if CPR is begun as soon as possible.Every second counts. If you do need to deliver CPR, you will be given support by our health advisors over the phone until an ambulance crew arrives.

“Our community resuscitation team work up and down our region to support our local communities and equip them with the knowledge and skills they need to help save lives in their local area. Restart a Heart is an extension of this and we’re looking forward to visiting organisations across the North East to create more lifesavers.

“Life-saving skills will form part of the school national curriculum from 2020, so this is a great opportunity to reach young people who might otherwise miss out at school. We know to improve survival rates from cardiac arrests is through widespread training in CPR.

“While it’s normal to feel worried about performing CPR, it’s important to remember that doing something to help is always better than doing nothing. You may not feel confident performing CPR if you haven’t been trained or you don’t remember your training; but without your early action, the chances someone will survive a cardiac arrest are virtually zero.

“The British Heart Foundation is striving to improve survival rates by creating a Nation of Lifesavers through our CPR training programmes. By raising awareness on Restart a Heart Day, we hope more people will see that CPR really can be the difference between life and death and that doing something is always better than doing nothing”.

The Restart a Heart campaign is delivered across the country by a collaboration between ambulance and fire services, the BHF, the Resuscitation Council (UK), St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross.

Find out more how we can help: https://www.neas.nhs.uk/get-involved/restart-a-heart.aspx

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