The “Saving Lives in Kenilworth” campaign driven by local charity Kenilworth HeartSafe took another step forward earlier this month with the installation of a new Automatic External Defibrillat...
The “Saving Lives in Kenilworth” campaign driven by local charity Kenilworth HeartSafe took another step forward earlier this month with the installation of a new Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) outside Kenilworth Fire Station thanks to the generous funding support of three Warwickshire County Councillors. Councillors Alan Cockburn, John Cooke and Dave Shilton each allocated part of their discretionary funds to meet the costs of acquiring and installing the AED.
Councillor Cockburn said “My colleagues and I are delighted to support this very worthwhile cause which is helping to keep safe people who live in, work in and visit Kenilworth. The UK has a lower survival rate for people suffering cardiac arrests than in many other countries and the work being done by Kenilworth HeartSafe is helping to address that in our community”.
Kenilworth HeartSafe Trustee Neil Morris said “We are extremely grateful to the three Councillors for their support of Kenilworth HeartSafe and to Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service for “hosting” the AED at Kenilworth Fire Station. This brings to 13 the number of AED’s in and around Kenilworth which are registered with the emergency services as being available for public use 24/7. We have now more than doubled the number of AED’s that were registered before Kenilworth HeartSafe came into being in 2018.
We have other sites under review and will be announcing further AED’s in the community in the very near future – moving towards our goal of having an AED within 400 metres of all areas of high footfall in and around the town, an ambition we are hoping to achieve by the end of 2020. In driving for this goal, we welcome approaches from organisations within the community which already own AED’s for internal use and which may be willing to relocate them to a specialist cabinet on an external wall and make them accessible to the public 24/7. We also welcome approaches from residents and organisations with their suggestions for host sites that would fit within the criteria of being within 400 metres of high footfall areas.
Our other major focus is to ensure that a significant number of people in our community are trained in the use of AED’s should the need ever arise to come to the assistance of someone who has had a cardiac arrest. In addition to our monthly public training programme of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) courses at Abbey Medical Centre, we are now reaching out to groups of people, typically through social and networking groups, to offer bespoke CPR courses at times and venues to suit them.
Without immediate CPR and defibrillation when cardiac arrest occurs the chances of survival are less than 5%. Survival rates drop 7-10% for every minute without appropriate CPR/AED support and permanent brain damage can be incurred within 10 minutes. In 2018 NHS England reported that the Ambulance Service attempted to resuscitate 28,000 people who had suffered a cardiac arrest and the survival rate was greatest where early CPR/AED attention had been given by the public in 40-45% of those cases. In Holland 60% of cases are supported by the public before the emergency services arrive and in Norway it is as high as 73% both with a higher overall survival rate as a consequence of early public intervention. Our aim is to ensure that Kenilworth and its environs is one of the safest areas of the country when it comes to the preservation of life.”
Further information about Kenilworth HeartSafe; the location of all AED’s in and around Kenilworth; its CPR training programme and ways of making donations to support the “Saving Lives in Kenilworth” campaign can be found at www.kenilwortheartsafe.com