Castles & Coasts Housing Association (CCHA) has invested £7,500 into the installation of ten life-saving defibrillators at independent living schemes, after securing £7,500 of match funding from defibrillator charity, London Hearts.
The units, which are fully accessible to the public, are registered with the ‘circuit’, the national defibrillator network that lets 999 call handlers direct people to the nearest registered defibrillator.
The schemes that have benefitted from the defibrillators are in Gateshead, Newcastle, Sunderland, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Maryport and Workington. The sites have been carefully chosen after CCHA carried out research and found that there were no other defibrillators within a three minute walk of the schemes identified.
CCHA’s Health and Safety Manager, Julie Hannah, said: “With these new defibrillators available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we aim to benefit as many people as possible within our independent living schemes and anyone close by that needs one in an emergency.
“We know statistically that early cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation can more than double someone’s chances of survival, so we hope that the addition of more defibs really does benefit the health and wellbeing of our communities. We can’t thank London Hearts enough for their funding.”
Each defibrillator has full instructions on how to access and use it. CCHA colleagues will conduct a monthly health and safety inspection of the units, including checking and replacing the pads if they have come to their expiry date, or if they have been used.
The full list of public access units installed by CCHA outside ten independent living schemes:
Defibrillator locations - North East
Brownsea Place, Gateshead, NE9 5PZ
Castle Close, Newcastle, NE16 4HU
Tindale Drive, Newcastle, NE16 4HX
Balmoral Court, Sunderland, SR5 4HF
Wadham Court, Sunderland, SR2 0AP
Defibrillator locations - Cumbria
Bishops Close, Carlisle, CA2 7BH
Upperby Court, Carlisle, CA2 4JW
Castle Gardens, Cockermouth, CA13 0JX
Ellen Court, Maryport, CA15 7PR
Laybourn House, Workington, CA14 3SN
One has also been installed at CCHA’s Newcastle office, Arcadia House at Balliol Business Park.
National statistics*
- 6 million people are living with heart and circulatory diseases
- There are more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK every year
- Early CPR can more than double the chances of survival
- Every 3 minutes someone dies from a heart or circulatory disease
- Every day, 270 hospital admissions will be due to a heart attack
- There are 175,000 annual deaths from heart and circulatory diseases in the UK
Local statistics*
Cumbria
- Every 5 hours someone dies from a heart or circulatory disease in Cumbria
- Heart and circulatory diseases kill more than 1 in 4 people in Cumbria
- There are around 3,600 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year in the North West of England
- Around 6,500 people in Cumbria have been diagnosed with heart failure by their GP
North East England
- Every 75 minutes someone dies from a heart or circulatory disease in the North East England
- Heart and circulatory diseases kill more than 1 in 4 people in the North East of England
- There are around 2,200 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year in the North East of England
- Around 36,000 people in the North East of England have been diagnosed with heart failure by their GP
* Source British Heart Foundation
You can find out more about the work of London Hearts on their website.