The Circuit – National Defibrillator Network

From the British Heart Foundation :

The British Heart Foundation, in partnership with the Resuscitation Council UK and the Scottish Ambulance Service, has launched a campaign to encourage individuals who look after publicly accessible defibrillators across Scotland to register the defibrillator on The Circuit.

Early defibrillation can more than double a person’s chances of surviving an out of hospital cardiac arrest – but many defibrillators never get used because emergency services don’t know where they are or how to access them.    With around 3,200 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests every year in Scotland, it’s crucial everyone who maintains a defibrillator registers their device on The Circuit to help save more lives.

Funded by the British Heart Foundation, and developed by Microsoft UK, the Circuit, is the first ever national defibrillator network in the UK, that integrates with Ambulance dispatch centres to direct bystanders to the nearest defibrillator in case of a cardiac arrest. Currently, across the UK a defibrillator is used in only 1 in 10 incidents of cardiac arrest, but we know that immediate CPR and defibrillation can more than double the chances of survival.

It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of defibrillators across the UK which are still to be registered on the new system. To make sure opportunities to save lives aren’t being missed, the organisations are aiming to see 70,000 additional defibrillators unknown to The Circuit registered by the end of the year.

You can find out more here.