Defibrillator situated at the Horse and Jockey, Manton

You may have noticed a bright yellow box located on a wall or inside a telephone box in surrounding villages and towns. These, as many people know, are defibrillators and are an essential piece of equipment for local community schemes to provide ‘Community Access Defibrillation’ (cPAD). The defibrillator will be sited at the Fox and Hounds and this has been made possible by the kind permission and help of the landlord, Jason Allen.

Why have a defibrillator and a cPAD scheme? The answer to this question can be found on the website of a charity called the Community HeartBeat Trust (CHT), but basically North Luffenham is a rural community and following a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) expert medical help is unlikely to arrive within 5 minutes. Following SCA survival decreases by 23%: survival is only 5% with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) alone; 50% with defibrillation.

The acquisition of the defibrillator has been made possible with the support of the CHT, a generous donation of half of the funding from the Karen Ball Fund, and the other half provided by North Luffenham Parish Council.

One of the other essential elements of a cPAD scheme is the need for a number of local volunteers who are trained to respond to a sudden cardiac event (SCA), able to perform basic life support (BLS) with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and in the use of the automated external defibrillator (AED). This may sound rather daunting but BLS and CPR are not demanding techniques, skills easy to learn, and the AEDs are designed to be simple to use.

There is also a lot of information on cPAD schemes on the CHT website.