The defibrillator was installed on the outside of the village hall just before Christmas 2020. It has been registered with the East of England Ambulance Service and the first site check was completed on 13th January which made it officially live and ready for use. The Parish Council purchased the defib equipment for the village with the assistance of grant funding.
The equipment was purchased and installed from the Community Heartbeat Trust (CHT), which is a charity that aims to help and support communities in the correct provision of defibrillators in a sustainable, resilient and governance led manner.
As part of their service CHT would normally offer face-to-face awareness training on the defibrillator as part of the implementation process. However, due to the current COVID 19 situation this is not possible. They are currently implementing a Zoom facility to offer awareness sessions online and hope to have this ready for mid-February. More information will be shared in the magazine and via the village email list for anyone who is interested.
The Parish Council is responsible for completing weekly checks of the cabinet and defibrillator to make sure it is accessible and ready for use. The equipment is lightweight and mobile and ready to be used with no set up; as soon as you turn it on it starts to provide the necessary instructions for use. If anyone does ever need access to the defibrillator all you need to do is to go to the village hall, call 999, they will ask for the cabinet number and will then be able to provide the key code to open the cabinet and talk you through the use of the equipment.
Further information and useful videos can be found here. Please take just half an hour to watch the CHT video and next time you’re passing the village hall, just familiarise yourself with the defibrillator’s whereabouts. The top three things I learned from the video were:-
1. The legal aspects of using the defibrillator ie. there is no risk of being sued if you are trying to save a life
2. Singing Nellie the Elephant helps with the rhythm of compressions
3. Our defibrillator has a TV screen as well as speaking device so you can check you are doing the right thing
Further information about the Community Heartbeat Trust (CHT) can be found here (download a pdf document).