Equal access to defibrillators can save lives says Abena Oppong-Asare MP
We all know having access to life-saving defibrillators saves lives. The issue is not their design but their location and public awareness about what they are and how to use them.
Having access to a life-saving defibrillator depends on where you live. Today, I called on the Government to address this cruel unfairness to save lives. That was my message in my Westminster Hall debate on public access to Defibrillators.
Research from the Resuscitation Council UK shows that access to defibrillators, or AEDs, is not fairly distributed across England. Each year, there are 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK, with less than one in ten surviving. Whilst immediate CPR and defibrillation can more than double the chances of survival, defibrillators are used in less than one in ten cases. If you have a cardiac arrest and have access to a defibrillator within a minute, have a 90% chance of survival.
According to the BMJ, access to a defibrillator varies widely by location:
- 140 per 100,000 people in Swansea
- 61 per 100,000 people in London
- 2 per 100,000 people in Birmingham
The issue was highlighted to me by the experience of my constituent, Bonnie McGhee, who works on the cardiology unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Bonnie sadly lost her father to cardiac arrest and has since successfully raised funds for a defibrillator in his memory.
Access to a defibrillator may have saved his life. Bonnie successfully fundraised for a defibrillator in memory of her father.
To save lives, defibrillators must be in a well-signposted location, unlocked and easy to find so that members of the community can access them immediately in an emergency. They must be maintained and ready for use. Information about defibrillator locations is hard to come by. People do not know where to find them and how to use them. The Circuit is a national database of defibrillators but it is incomplete, meaning that emergency services may not be able to direct someone to save a life.
In my debate today I said “Knowing where a defibrillator is and how to use one saves lives. Learning simple resuscitation skills can make all the difference in an emergency. Today, I’m calling on Ministers to listen and help save lives.”
You can read my full speech here and watch it here.
