Automated External Defibrillation

Course review:

Over 150,000 people die from sudden cardiac arrest in the UK every year, making it the UK's most common cause of sudden death.

Even with the advent of paramedic ambulances and the government's target of an eight-minute response time, we still have a less than 5 per cent survival to hospital rate.

• In up to 85 per cent of cardiac arrests, the heart simply loses its rhythm, and goes into ventricular fibrillation (VF).
• A heart in VF requires urgent, definitive treatment rather than CPR which simply "buys time" until the ambulance arrives.
• If a shock from a defibrillator is passed through the heart within 2-3 minutes, the patient's chances of survival will be increased by over 50 per cent.

This course is designed to give delegates the skills to carry out effective basic life support including the use of automated external defibrilation.

On successful completion of the AED course and assessment, the delegate will be able to carry out basic life support with the aid of an AED unit to a competent standard. Deal with incident safety management and know how to maintain and test the equipment used.

Course content includes:

• Incident safety management
• Basic life support skills
• Anatomy and physiology
• Introduction to AED protocol
• Statistics
• AED theory
• Role play
• Maintenance and testing
• Skill station assessments