Every year in the UK, there are more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) and less than one in ten people survive. Defibrillators can make the difference between life and death but whilst every minute without CPR and defibrillation can reduce the chances of survival by up to 10%, public access defibrillators are used in less than one in ten cases.
The Circuit, a national defibrillator network co-funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), aims to improve survival rates by mapping the location of defibrillators across the UK, so that they can be found immediately in an emergency. There are currently over 60,000 defibrillators registered to the Circuit, however, it is estimated that there are still tens of thousands unknown to emergency services.
To make sure opportunities to save lives aren’t being missed, the Complete the Circuit crusade is seeking to find these ‘missing’ defibrillators and increase the number of registrations to 100,000 by the end of the year.
Richard Fuller MP said:
Each minute without CPR and defibrillation can reduce cardiac arrest survival by 10%. The British Heart Foundation's 'The Circuit' maps defibs for emergencies, but many are unregistered so I am calling on guardians of defibrillators to add their device at www.thecircuit.uk
If you are the guardian of a defibrillator, please register the device using this link.
