'Poorly maintained defibs putting lives at risk'

Lives are being put at risk by poorly maintained publicly accessible defibrillators, charities have warned.

Some devices registered on a national network, used by members of the public in an emergency, appeared "rescue ready" but were found to be unavailable.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) and Heart 2 Heart Norfolk said they were concerned that people who needed the machines would not be able to access them.

They are calling for all defibrillators to be regularly inspected, and for contact details to be kept up to date.

Defibrillators are used - alongside resuscitation or CPR - to give the best chance of survival during a cardiac arrest. They give an electric charge or current to the heart to try and restore a normal heartbeat.

Across the UK, more than 86,000 publicly accessible devices are registered on the BHF’s network, called The Circuit.

NHS ambulance services use The Circuit when sending members of the public to their nearest defibrillator during an emergency before paramedics arrive.

Jayne Biggs, founder of Heart 2 Heart Norfolk, which raises money to install defibrillators, said she had seen "hundreds of the devices" either mistakenly unavailable or available but with the wrong information or access codes.

"If you put a publicly accessible defibrillator in and you register it on The Circuit you can't just leave it," she said.

"If you're not going to keep it up to date and always live it's useless. That could be somebody's life."

Raymond Marsh needed a defibrillator just before Christmas last year when he was taken ill at his home in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex.

He said: "the pain was in my chest, in my side, it was in part of my back, and I honestly thought I was on the way out".

Mr Marsh's daughter Julie Farrow called for an ambulance and was told that, as a precautionary measure, she needed to find a defibrillator.

She found one at the Co-op store in Frinton which, like many of the publicly accessible devices, she needed a code to access.

She said: "We were given three different codes and each one didn't work.

"The call handler said, 'go over to Homelands Church' as she had got that listed as a possible location, I got there and there was no machine there."

A third location suggested by the call handler, Elm Tree Avenue in Frinton, turned out to be a care home that had been demolished.

Ms Farrow added: "I just hope this never happens to anyone else and codes would be kept up to date."

Mr Marsh was taken to hospital and told the pain had been caused by kidney stones.

The BHF said more awareness was needed about the dangers of poorly maintained devices and called for those responsible for them to regularly inspect them.

Simon Dunn, head of Circuit operations at the BHF added: "Ideally defibrillators should be accessible 24/7 in unlocked cabinets. This ensures they are available to the community with no risk of delay in gaining access in an emergency.

"Some defibrillators such as those in shops or schools are only available when those buildings are open. However, the ambulance service will direct you to the nearest available defibrillator in an emergency."