Legal requirement?....Nope, not even a requirement to have one....but if you do have one it would make sense to do some training...else whats the point of having one :)

The thing with it is that you cannot use it wrong if you follow the instructions and do what the machine says! It really is pretty much foolproof! I guess familiarisation with it or an introduction to it is the best thing to do!!

The use of a defib includes doing chest compressions....good luck getting that right without any prior training.

We have 10 first aiders trained with AED- me being one of them. I would recommend some kind of training to get a feel for it and also because if more than one person attends the course it acts as a bit of support should it be required- even the most confident people can have their nerves shot to pieces in a bad situation. I am glad I have some other people I can look to should the AED ever be required at my work.

Don't get carried away. Very few victims survive. And it doesn't get much better in hospital.

As everyone has said no legal requirement, however if you pick the supplier of your equipment wisely they will do the training for free e.g. £1,200 AED with half day training for 12 people :-)

I think the point is that altough Defibs are not legally required, if you have one you really need to have some personnel trained to use them. I think comment number 10 was pretty much the only post that didnt really take that view.

So answer original question - if you have one best practice would suggest you train staff to use, some of our first aiders have had it covered in recent refresher sessions. We were lucky enough to get a free train the trainer session from our local NHS, who will also allow us to use their training kits. Survival chances from a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) decrease 10% every minute and as some emergency response times can be as much as 10 - 12 mins, we are a rural area, training staff can only be a good thing. Our trainer was adamant that even an untrained person following the recorded instructions and using AED gave the victim a better chance of surviving.

Hi Kevin, Yes they are stats for out of hospital cardiac arrest that were subsequently attended by EMS. Data is from the consensus paper from the UK resuscitation council. If you go on their website the paper is a free download. Makes very interesting reading. Cheers Phil

We have put defibs in all of our offices and sites because our top reporting structure is based in the states so we tend to follow corporate requirements where these don't go against our UK laws. What I would say is that the reason the USA wanted us to have them was because there were a number of law suits going through in the US where people sued companies where employees had suffered a heart attack or cardiac arrest and their first aiders (who are trained to the level of paramedics over there) didn't use a defibrillator and this either caused them to not survive or they suffered complications as a result of a delay in treatment such as brain damage which meant they could no longer work. It's only a matter of time before this type of thing hits our shores so I would say in high risk environments and those where you have a large number of employees, it is worth the investment. A unit can cost anything up to around £1,300 and we got ours for just over a grand with a 7 year battery life, self testing which we check once a month. Training we do every year to get practice. Whilst they are virtually foolproof to use there are some scenarios the training provides that you might not think of just using one. For example, using a defib on a road where the rumble of traffic can interfere with the machine. Using one on a metal floor (not good), or treating someone who has meteal piercings in their chest reason, or someone who has wet clothes on. Things in the heat of the moment you may not think about or consider, so well worth the effort to have training and keep refreshing it. CPR alone has a just over a 3% chance of survival where as the chances or survival increase greatly if you can get a defib to someone within the first five minutes of them having an attack. The ambulance crew has 8 minutes to respond to a heart attack or cardiac arrest so you are doing them a favour.

It doesn't matter whether there are people trained in the use of AUTOMATIC defibs....the things talk you through operation... What DOES matter is that you have people who have been acquainted with the rudiments of up-to-date CPR..... No CPR, and you are shocking a corpse...or, as I said before, you won't be shocking it because the AED just won't work.....no shockable rythm, no shock. CPR. CPR. CPR. And even in hospital, with highly trained arrest team, the survival rate is poor...about 20%. CPR !!!!!!!!!!!!

UK Resuscitation Councils take on wet/metal surfaces and AED use: Question: (3) Is it safe to defibrillate a victim if they are lying on a wet or metal surface? Answer: Yes, it is safe to defibrillate a victim who is lying on a metallic or wet surface. If the self-adhesive pads are applied correctly, and provided there is no direct contact between the user and the victim when the shock is delivered, there is no direct pathway that electricity could take that would cause the user to experience a shock. If the victim is wet, his/her chest should be dried so that the self-adhesive AED pads will stick properly. As with any attempt at defibrillation, particular care should be taken to ensure that no one is touching the victim when a shock is delivered. top