Public- Access Defibrillator Scheme

Q5 Lorraine Barrett: Will the First Minister make a statement on the public-access defibrillator scheme? OAQ(3)1524(FM)

The First Minister: Since it began two years ago, the Assembly-Government-funded public defibrillator scheme, provided by the Welsh ambulance service, has installed 50 defibrillators throughout Wales and provided training and refresher training to over 500 volunteers in basic life support and use of the defibrillator machines.

Lorraine Barrett: For me, the crucial part of this scheme is the training of staff—if you do not have enough trained staff, then the machines are not much good.   

Will you give some thought to developing and expanding the scheme to encourage businesses, hotels, leisure centres and so on, to provide defibrillators and also to ensure that staff, old and new, are trained and are able to keep up their expertise in using these machines?

The First Minister: That is an important issue, because every moment counts when the heart has stopped beating. In a crisis of that nature, defibrillators are of value, and the sooner defibrillation is performed, the greater the chances of survival—your chances of survival get worse by the minute. We train people, but we accept that you cannot have universal access to a defibrillator; for example, I was in the middle of a field, walking the dog, when I needed a defibrillator. However, you want defibrillators in areas where there is heavy traffic, such as mainline railway and bus stations, busy shopping centres and so on, but not every passer by is going to feel confident about using the equipment. Therefore, there is a need for training and for updating that training.