Cardiac Survival Rates High on Yorkshire Ambulance Service Agenda
Friday, 16 January, 2015
Jason Carlyon at conference
Efforts by Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust (YAS) to become a leader in cardiac arrest survival rates have reached the international arena.
Jason Carlyon, a Clinical Development Manager for YAS in North Yorkshire, recently travelled to South Korea to attend the Seoul Citizen CPR Festival.
South Korea is one of the world-leaders for bystander cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) really making a difference to the outcomes of cardiac arrest patients. This is largely due to an extensive CPR training programme for its citizens.
Jason was behind an award-winning YAS initiative to teach CPR to around 11,800 secondary schoolchildren across Yorkshire in one day in October 2014.Over 30,000 people suffer cardiac arrests outside of hospital in the UK every year. If this happens in front of a bystander who starts CPR immediately before the arrival of the ambulance, the patient’s chances of survival double.
Inspired by his visit to East Asia, Jason is now developing plans to further drive improvements in cardiac arrest survival rates across Yorkshire.
Jason, who is based at Scarborough Ambulance Station, said: “Providing CPR training is a critical element in the chain of survival and I have brought back some ideas which will bring about demonstrable improvements in cardiac arrest survival rates.
“It was fascinating conference with one of the highlights being a talk from Dr Freddy Lippert, from the University of Copenhagen, who has improved bystander CPR rates in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 20% in 2001 to 47% today and an improvement in successful outcomes which mirrors this.”
Jason was sponsored by Laerdal (a producer of medical simulation and clinical education equipment) to attend the two-day conference, which incorporated a Home Education and Resuscitation Outcomes Study workshop, the International Expert Summit for Citizen CPR and the 4th Seoul International EMS Symposium: Improving Home Bystander CPR.
Attendance at the event reinforces YAS’s commitment to improving outcomes for patients who suffer cardiac arrests.
YAS has numerous initiatives to support this priority, including increasing the numbers of Community First Responders trained to help patients who suffer life-threatening illness such as heart attacks, breathing difficulties, cardiac arrest and stroke. We are also striving to boost the number of static sites, such as railway stations and shopping centres, which have volunteers with life-saving skills and a public access defibrillator.
The volunteers attended 9,551 incidents in 2013-14; including 424 cardiac arrests, which represents 5.68% of all cardiac arrests attended by the Trust.
We have also launched a Red Arrest Team dedicated to achieving Quality CPR (Q-CPR) which is the term for the range of techniques needed to achieve maximal cerebral blood flow and coronary perfusion during the state of cardiac arrest. This aims to maximise the chances of a patient surviving with good neurological outcomes with all aspects of resuscitation monitored through the download of CPR performance data. The team is provided with enhanced training in resuscitation and the use of advanced critical care techniques such as automated CPR devices.
