Heartstart Malvern
Every year around 35 people in Malvern will have a cardiac arrest. Less than four of these people will survive. If the survival rate was as high as some other European countries, several more people would survive a cardiac arrest in Malvern every year. The higher survival rate in other countries is helped by more people learning simple resuscitation skills and the availability of public access defibrillators.
Since its launch in January 2017, Heartstart Malvern has provided free resuscitation training, which includes how to use a defibrillator, to over 1,500 people including local school children. The charity has also installed 12 public access defibrillators around Malvern thanks to the very generous support from local fundraising groups and local people.
Heartstart Malvern is now calling for more people to come forward to take part in one of their free training sessions. The training provided by Heartstart Malvern takes just over ninety minutes. In this time the charity’s volunteer trainers can teach anyone aged 10 years and over some very simple skills which could help save a life.
The training is very practical and no previous experience is needed.
The charity is also very keen to visit different groups or employers in and around Malvern to deliver training at one of their regular meetings or in the workplace. All that is needed for this is a large room and between about twelve and thirty people to participate in the training.
Heartstart Malvern would also like to hear from local fundraising groups or businesses who can help them with their appeal to install 50 defibrillators around Malvern. If a defibrillator can be used to give a patient a controlled electric shock as soon as possible after their heart has stopped beating, there is a good chance that it will restart the patient’s heart. For every delay of a minute between the patient collapsing and them receiving an electric shock from a defibrillator, their chance of survival decreases by about ten per cent each minute.
Having more defibrillators located around Malvern for members of the public to use will reduce the time between a patient collapsing and being defibrillated. This will lead to lives being saved every year. Each defibrillator and special cabinet costs about £1,600. Although this is quite expensive, it is a small price to pay for saving a life.
Defibrillators are very simple and safe to use. Once the defibrillator is turned on it will give the user audio and visual instructions on how to use it. Using a defibrillator for the first time can be very daunting for most people. However, attending a Heartstart Malvern training course will give you plenty of time to practice using a training defibrillator which will increase your confidence in using a real one should the need arise.
For more information about Heartstart Malvern, or to book a place on a free training session, please visit www.heartstartmalvern.org.uk or telephone 07926 615812