This topic has been on this site recently however I cannot find the original thread?

A member of our safety committee wants our employer to buy some defibrillators and train staff how to use them, the suggestion was backed up by another member of the committee siting the recent case of the Bolton Footballer Fabrice Muamba who had a heart attack whilst playing at Tottenham, from memory I remember several posters saying that they had withdrawn defibrillators from their premises after carrying out a risk assessment because the chances of someone having a heart attack at work near a defibrillator with a trained user handy were very slim, I also said that we had trained first alders on hand at all times and they should be able to keep the patient alive until the emergency services arrived, I also stated that all our buildings through out the country were in major towns and therefore close to general hospitals and ambulance stations, another major factor was the cost of each defibrillator and the training involved, I also seem to remember that the positioning and availability of trained staff was another issue? I hope I have recalled the correct thread?
I too am a member of this committee and a union official I used these facts during the meeting but these members on the committee seem determined to carry this through, I feel we are going to be wasting our time and resources we work for a major government department who are cutting back on everything possible due to Austerity.
Has anybody got any real evidence to back up my point of view or do you think defibrillators will be part and parcel of the first aid kit in the future?

Our safety committee went through this recently.

We have offices that are either very small (4 or 5 people) or in major population centres and up to about 100 people. We concluded:

There's lots of emotional stuff (what if you decide not to and someone dies ... what if it's your life you save ... how much do you think a life is worth anyway).

Current pricing can be as low as £1000 purchase and around £50 pa consumables / maintenance. Further, the Resuscitation Council guidelines now do not mandate training: http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/AEDtrnst.htm “It is the view of the Resuscitation Council (UK) that the use of AEDs should NOT be restricted to trained personnel”, and similar statements in the current guidelines http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/aed.pdf

However, the current consensus H&S professionals view seems to be AEDs should be deployed where there is a workforce of thousands, or large numbers of the general public (including potentially vulnerable people), or activities exacerbate the risk of cardiac arrest (eg strenuous sport). If you have a hundred people, and they are 'normally fit' working-age demographic doing office-type tasks then risk probably does not count as significant and very few such places have AED, and it (currently) would be exceeding normal good practice to provide one.

Also relevant is that it's far from certain that an AED saves a life even if it is used. The manufacturers say coy things like 'success rates as high as 75% have been reported', but it seems like realistically the presence of an AED in the building turns an 8% chance of surviving a cardiac arrest into something like a 30% chance of surviving.

We concluded that it would be affordable (to the business), and I'm sure if we got the choice we'd rather pay £1200 than have a fatality in the office. It's not legally necessary, it's not current normal practice (for an office of our size) but it might be regarded as best practice. Whether you want to present it as 'best practice' or whether you want to present it as 'gold-plating' depends upon what spin you want to present.

We decided not to purchase AEDs for our offices.

We went through the above process a year or so ago, and our report was very similar to what you detail.

1 point to reiterate is the type of site, proximity of hospitals and the ability for a paramedic to reach a casualty patient if required to do so. A defib may more appropriate to an industrial site that requires security (I.e. it would take a paramedic a long time to reach the patient).

Any defibs are designed to be used by members of the public, they are fully self explanatory and you cannot actually operate them incorrectly (voice prompt system etc.).

We submitted our report saying that in our office building in London they were not necessary, and were then told the board wanted one per floor (7 floors)! Sometimes you can never win (but it's a good bargaining tool for future investments that will actually make a demonstrable difference!)

Was that at a "Adrenalin Junky Anonymous" meeting? When life’s too boring you need to electrocute yourself..

Given that they will not operate if a normal heartbeat is detected (no matter what button you press), it seems someone has missed the point!

We have three AEDs within our site and have unfortunatley had to use one once. The training delivered to our first aiders and the use of the defib saved the guys life.

Not using a defib is good and no excuse not to have one. There is always a chance of needing to use one and if you were the one lying on the floor then you would appreciate having one at hand.

If you are in an area where there are a few working premises, why don't you all get together and have one in a central area and just make people aware where it is held. A good first aider can carry out CPR until the defib arrives even after a few minutes, but I would always be happy to know that one is available.

Put a questionaire out to the workforce !

I think it depends on your industry/circumstances/location etc. There will as always been a number of different opinions, but I think that achrn and Brian make some very valid points at #3,4 and 10.

We have installed these in each of our leisure centres through a scheme with the community heartbeat trust and the community defib officer from our local ambulance service. Reduced cost of defibs, free initial and ongoing training and replacement consumables when used ‘in anger’. Defib has a ‘low maintenance’ regime.

We don’t have them in our main office or other ‘non leisure’ venues.

Sean

I, too, work in a large Govt department (MOD at Corsham).

If we can talk off-line I can give you all the in's and out's of the arguments as we have just gone through this too.