Valentine's Day gift from the East of England Ambulance sees 10,000 defibrillators registered
The Service says it's a good day for hearts across the region
Last updated 14th Feb 2025
10,000 defibrillators have been registered across the East of England, just in time for Valentine's Day.
The East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST), which covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Essex, says the registers across the six counties contributed to a wider goal of 100,000 registrations for the British Heart Foundation.
A defibrillator is a life-saving device, which is used with CPR to help those who suffer cardiac arrests outside of hospital to get their hearts beating again.
The regions now surpassed it's target of 10,000 defibrillators being registered to 'The Circuit'; a national defibrillator network, which maps where they are in the UK. In turn, it enables 999 services to direct members of the public to the nearest one in an emergency.
Dr Simon Walsh, medical director at EEAST and representative at the National Ambulance Services Medical Directors' Group on The Circuit’s National Advisory Board, says the milestone is "a fabulous achievement" which involved working together to get as many registered as possible.
"“If your business, club or organisation has a defibrillator, you need to do three simple things to make it ready to save lives:
“1 - Register your defibrillator on The Circuit - unless its registered, our call handlers can’t direct people to it. It only takes five minutes.
“2 - Ensure it is maintained and its batteries are changed regularly – or else it might not be ready when it’s really needed.
“ 3 - Keep its status updated on The Circuit. If your defibrillator is ever used it will be marked as out of service so that, in an emergency, people aren’t directed to a machine that is not ready. After use, your defibrillator needs to be checked, the battery and any disposable parts replaced – and its status updated on The Circuit. That way we will know it’s back in service.”