Powered Access Hire firm Nationwide Platforms have announced that it has recently completed the purchase and installation of a defibrillator at their Birmingham depot.
The site it just one of the company's business sites equipped with a life-saving defibrillator, with a further 37 premises and communities across the UK also benefiting from the investment.
Registered with the Ambulance Services, the devices are available for use in the event of an emergency by both employees and the general public in the immediate vicinity.
In the UK there are approximately 60,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests per year. Of these, the Ambulance Service attempts resuscitation in approximately 28,000 cases only, as the person is often beyond resuscitation by the time they arrive. The only definitive treatment against serious cardiac arrest is the life-saving shock from a defibrillator. Pairing this with effective CPR can increase a victim's chance of survival from 6 per cent to 74 per cent if delivered within the first 3-5 min of collapse.
Health, Safety and Environmental Director, Mark Keily said: "Putting people's safety first is at the very heart of Nationwide Platforms and nothing could be more important than the health and wellbeing of the people that operate within our business. The roll out of these defibrillators really could mean the difference between life and death.
We found that some of our company sites are more than 6 miles away from the nearest potentially lifesaving defibrillators. And with the closest Accident and Emergency facilities sometimes more than 10 miles away, closing the gap on defibrillator locations not just for our employee's but also the communities we operate in could only ever be a good thing."
He added: "The defibrillators are within easy access for public use and we have also trained designated employees at all of our sites in the hope that should someone suffer a cardiac arrest we're doing our very best to significantly improve their chances of survival."
