On Thursday 22nd June, with great excitement and pride in our community, Stacey Jeffs, the Manager of Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery Aylesbury and Mr Reed, the Head of Broughton Community Schools, cut the ribbon to officially ‘open’ the new defibrillator that has been placed on the wall of King’s wine on Parton Road, Aylesbury.

Stacey, encouraged and supported by Monkey Puzzle Aylesbury, has led the campaign for the community to come together to provide this vital life-saving piece of equipment, and was joined by Mr Reed who enabled the school community to generously contribute to the defibrillator fund. This was a real community project with donations coming from families of those attending Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery, the school, local shops such as More+, 2D print world, Onestop, TCI Frydays and other individuals. The children at the nursery have learned about helping others, and the Pupil Parliament at Broughton School has been able to discuss the needs of the local community and to take part in a project that will inevitably save lives. The members of The Pupil Parliament were able to show the defibrillator to local Councillor, Richard Lloyd, who was impressed by this project. Passersby, councilor, teachers, school children, nursery staff and directors joined Stacey and Mr Reed in celebrating this momentous occasion with cakes and refreshments.

Now for the facts:

The nearest defibrillator was 0.8 miles away – too far for emergency call handlers to use. Now anyone in the vicinity is able to use this community facility in an emergency. Our defib is accessible 24/7 and can be changed between paediatric and adult pads depending on who needs it. It is designed to be used by anyone without prior training, and it also has a built-in storage card that will read the patient’s ECG (electrocardiogram) which the ambulance service will download when they arrive. Access to the machine is given when 999 is dialed requesting assistance, and an ambulance is dispatched.

One local lady who saw the unveiling thanked everyone. She felt that if there had been one when her husband had needed it, then he might have survived, but she was grateful that someone else’s life might be saved. This is a clear reflection of the need in our communities to provide defibrillators.

In the UK there are over 30,000 Cardiac Arrests a year outside of hospital. However, the survival rate is less than one in ten victims.

In the UK, the average time for emergency services to arrive following a 999 call is 8-12 minutes. With Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), every minute counts as survival rate and this drops by 7-10% for every minute without defibrillation and CPR.

Defibrillation within 3-5 minutes of collapse can enhance survival rates by 50-70%. This means with more public access defibs, we can significantly improve survival rates. Sadly, heart problems do not just affect older people. Young people can have undetected heart conditions, as reflected in a recent news story in the UK, whereby an 11 year old child, did not survive an SCA. There might have been a different outcome if a defibrillator had been available.

As well as saving lives in this community, hopefully other local communities will be encouraged to come together to provide a defibrillator for their local needs.