Adoption of phone box for Defibrillator

I am looking into the feasibility of the Parish Council adopting our BT Phone Box to house a defibrillator and I would like to know what support there is, or indeed is not from the village.

Defibrillator are now available in most, if not all large shopping centres, some garages and many villages have fitted one in their phone box.

How they work

If you dial 999 and the operator thinks that the patient would benefit from a defibrillator they give you the code to the box and hopefully there is someone who could go and fetch it. Full instructions are included, and training will be offered to anyone interested. You do not have to read complicated instructions, the machine talks to you with the information needed to use it.

Can I do any harm

The machine can detect if there is a heart beat and will not let you shock the patient in those circumstances, however, if there is no heartbeat you cannot do any harm by trying to restore cardiac output.

Why use a defibrillator

The person’s chance of survival after a cardiac arrest increases by up to 50% when a defibrillator is used, which is vital in rural areas where ambulance response time can be slow.

How much does it cost

There is an initial cost of £2000 with an ongoing cost of approximately £50 per year for electricity.

I would be interested to hear any comments, for or against, which I will then take back to our next Parish Council Meeting.

I can be contacted on 01366 500295, or my email address is janetstocking@aol.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Janet Stocking Parish Councillor