Defibrillators around The Lee

In our local area there are four defibrillators that are for use by the general public. Often, and quite understandably, people are nervous about the use of the machines and what they should do if they potentially need to use one. Below we offer some information about them.

All defibrillators are registered at (https://www.thecircuit.uk/) which is a national database for all defibs across the country. All defibrillators registered on The Circuit, have their location, readiness status and box code instantly synchronised with the emergency services’ systems ensuring that their information is always up to date and ready to help save lives.

 On a monthly basis, the owners or ‘guardians’ of defibrillators receive an email to ask them to confirm that the defib is ready for use and that the defib pads are in date. This information is updated on the central database.

There is often a misconception that you need to be trained to use a public defib machine.  Whilst touching on the use of defibs as part of an overall first aid course, it’s not necessary for anyone to have specific defib training as the units have been designed to walk everyone through what is needed at the time of emergency. As defibs vary, having too much information on the use of the defib maybe prohibitive – for example, some defibs can be used on children, others can’t. They are designed for anyone to be able to use them with clear, audible instruction on what to do when it is turned on.

 At the point of emergency and/or suspected cardiac arrest/heart attack, the very first action is to call 999. It will be for the emergency services to determine whether a defibrillator is required and if needed, they will immediately connect with The Circuit database to locate the nearest defib to the emergency location and to give the box code to access the machine. Once the emergency services are on the way then the defib unit can be collected using the code they have been given.

 The emergency services will know where the nearest defib is to the casualty that is ready to use.

If a defib has been used or has been taken out of readiness status by the guardian for any number of reasons (e.g. Pads have expired, recall from manufacture, etc) The Circuit will know this information and direct the caller to the nearest ‘ready-for-use’ defib.  At the point of emergency, the nearest defib to the casualty might not be the nearest defib that is ready for use… only by calling 999 will this info be available by the emergency services connecting with The Circuit.

So imagine that an emergency takes place in The Lee, but the defib at the Parish Hall has been used the previous week and not yet been returned and the one at the Cock and Rabbit is out of use as their pads have expired. The emergency services would know this and then direct the caller to either the one at Ballinger War Memorial Hall or Ballinger Cricket Club as the next nearest machines that are ‘ready to use’.

 The local defibrillators are located as below (with their What Three Words locations):