We are collecting basic information about the variables known to influence the chances of successful resuscitation - like the presence of bystander CPR, and the time intervals between collapse and first shock from the defibrillator. The survey is not designed to assess how competently the resuscitation attempt was managed, and there is no intention whatsoever of any criticism being made of an individual or organisation.

A working party of the Council has designed a report form for anyone who has attempted resuscitation with an AED, enabling them to report the incident. This form is very simple: it is designed in triplicate and is contained on one side of A4 paper. If the top copy is completed using a ballpoint pen, two further copies are generated automatically. We ask that the top copy be returned to our offices in London; the other two copies may be kept by the rescuers or the organisation for which they are working.

An article describing the design of the report form has been published in the journal "Resuscitation" Volume 61 No.1 April 2004, pages 49-54. The paper is titled "Public access defibrillation: designing a universal report form and database for a national programme", authors Michael Colquhoun et al. The abstract of the paper is reproduced here.

The major organisations that promote first responder defibrillation (including the Department of Health and the Voluntary Aid Societies) have agreed to report all their resuscitation attempts. Several police forces and fire services that act as first responders have agreed to participate, as have several ambulance services that run community first responder schemes. There have already been reports of several well-documented 'saves'.

If you do not fall into one of these categories, or if your organisation does not yet contribute, do please contact us so that our database provides as complete a picture of practice in the UK as possible.

Initial results from the survey, based on 1530 events reported between March 1999 and December 2005 in England and Wales have been published in the journal "Resuscitation" Volume 78 No.3 September 2008, pages 275-280. This paper is titled "A national scheme for public access defibrillation in England and Wales: Early results", authors Michael Colquhoun et al. Please click here to view the abstract for the paper.

We invite any organisation or individual who is involved in the use of AEDs by lay persons in the community to contribute to the survey. If you are interested in this project, please write to Sara Harris at our head office. For the purposes of this survey we consider that a professional working outside the normal workplace is a lay person. For example, if you are an ambulance technician or paramedic or an RO working in a first aid capacity outside your NHS Trust, you would be eligible to contribute. We would be very grateful if those who undertake training of lay persons in the use of AEDs would bring this survey to the attention of all those whom they train and encourage them, and their organisations, to contact Sara Harris for a supply of the report form.

It is only by studying resuscitation attempts that we can learn how to use AEDs most effectively, and ultimately save more lives. We hope you are able to contribute and we look forward to sharing further results with you in due course.

 
Dr Michael Colquhoun
 
 
 

	© Resuscitation Council (UK)  2008   This page last updated: 1 September 2008