AED – Automated External Defibrillators

Description

Why a workplace buys one

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is common and survival is poor. Resuscitation Council UK reports approximately 115,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests reported to UK ambulance services each year, with resuscitation attempted in around 43,000 of them. Thirty-day survival is about 9.5% in England, 9.6% in Scotland and 6.5% in Northern Ireland.

Those are sobering numbers and they are the real ones. You will see much larger figures quoted by suppliers, including on pages we used to publish ourselves. We have corrected ours.

What changes the odds is speed: immediate CPR, and a defibrillator arriving in minutes rather than when the ambulance does. That is the entire argument for having one on site, and it does not need exaggerating.

Do you have to have one?

No. There is no legal requirement for a workplace to provide a defibrillator. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.

What the law does require is that your first aid provision is based on a first aid needs assessment. An AED is one of the things that assessment can reasonably conclude you need, and the factors that point towards one are straightforward: a large or dispersed workforce, public access, an older or higher-risk population on site, physically demanding work, or an ambulance response time that is realistically long where you are.

What providing one commits you to

This is the part suppliers skip. Once you provide equipment for use at work, it falls within the scope of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. In practice that means three things:

• It must be suitable for the purpose and the place
• It must be maintained in efficient working order, which for an AED means someone actually checking the status indicator and tracking pad and battery expiry dates
• People must have adequate information, instruction and training

None of that is onerous. But a defibrillator in a cabinet with flat pads that nobody has looked at since installation is worse than no defibrillator, because the organisation believes it is covered.

Do you need training to use one?

Legally, no. The device will not deliver a shock unless it detects a shockable rhythm, and it talks the user through each step. A bystander with no training can use one and should.

Practically, training makes a large difference, and not for the reason people assume. It is not about learning which button to press. It is about someone having opened the case before, knowing that pads go on bare skin, knowing that CPR continues while the machine analyses, and not losing ninety seconds to hesitation. Ninety seconds matters here.

That is why training is included in the price of the unit, and why AED use is part of every first aid course we run rather than an upsell.

Siting and looking after it

• Put it where it can be reached and returned within a few minutes, not in a locked office
• Tell everyone where it is, not just the first aiders
• Check the status indicator as part of an existing routine, so it never becomes a special task
• Diarise pad and battery expiry dates, because they expire quietly
• Consider a wall cabinet if it is going somewhere public, and ask us about one when you order
• If you have made it available to the wider community, register it with The Circuit, the national defibrillator network, so ambulance services can direct callers to it

What we will confirm before you buy

Warranty length, battery and pad replacement intervals and the current price for the specific model, in writing. We would rather send you those figures than have you rely on a paragraph on a web page that may have aged.

Frequently asked questions

Is a defibrillator a legal requirement in the workplace?

No. There is no legal duty to provide one. Your first aid needs assessment decides whether one is appropriate for your workplace, and for many businesses the honest answer is that it is not.

Do you need training to use a defibrillator?

No. The device analyses the rhythm and will not shock unless one is needed, and it gives spoken instructions throughout. Training still helps, because familiarity removes hesitation, which is the thing that actually costs time.

Can you hurt someone with an AED?

Not if you follow the spoken prompts. The device will not deliver a shock to a rhythm that does not need one. The greater risk by a wide margin is that nobody fetches it.

Is training included?

Yes, training is included in the price of the unit. AED use is also covered on every first aid course we run, so people who attend one need nothing extra.

What is not included in the price?

VAT, postage, and travel outside Greater Manchester.

How often does an AED need checking?

The unit self-tests and signals a fault, so routine checking is a glance at the status indicator. What needs diarising is the expiry dates on the pads and the battery, because those pass without any warning on the day.

What happens to the equipment when it is used?

The pads are single use and need replacing. Tell us and we will sort replacements. It is also worth debriefing everyone involved, because using a defibrillator on a colleague is a significant event whatever the outcome.

Should we buy new or reconditioned?

A reconditioned unit is a reasonable choice if cost is what is stopping you having one at all. We list reconditioned Zoll AED Plus units separately. What matters is that the unit is serviceable, the consumables are in date and somebody knows where it is.

Does CPR training come with it?

CPR and AED use are taught together, because they are used together. Compressions continue while the device analyses and charges. Any of our first aid courses covers both.

Not sure whether your workplace needs a defibrillator? Call 0845 838 4643 or use the enquiry form. If your needs assessment does not support one, we will tell you that rather than sell you one.