On village greens, on sports activities corridor partitions and in native outlets throughout the nation are transportable units that would imply the distinction between life and dying when somebody has a cardiac arrest.

These units known as defibrillators are positioned on the coronary heart of communities as a result of they play a significant function within the chain of survival but all too usually we don’t know the place the closest one is.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) developed The Circuit which goals to sort out this by mapping defibrillators throughout the UK, in order that emergency providers can direct bystanders to the closest defibrillator within the occasion of a cardiac arrest.

It is because of neighborhood stalwarts throughout the nation that we've so many defibrillators within the UK. They are the individuals who purchase the defibrillator for neighborhood use or who fundraise to make sure their neighborhood has entry to those lifesaving units.

But the success of this neighborhood spirit relies on each defibrillator being on the system – and this is the reason we'd like as soon as once more to rally that neighborhood spirit and get all these defibrillators registered on The Circuit.

There are over 60,000 defibrillators registered on The Circuit. But whereas we've made nice strides, the job shouldn't be but achieved – there are an estimated 100,000 defibrillators throughout the UK, which means far too many of those life-saving units are nonetheless invisible to ambulance providers.

A cardiac arrest can occur to anybody. Your mum or dad, your baby, your brother or sister. And when the unthinkable occurs each second counts.

Early CPR and defibrillation can greater than double the probabilities of survival within the final medical emergency. There are over 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests yearly within the UK, and tragically lower than one in ten survive.

We know as a nation we will and should enhance cardiac arrest survival charges – however we will solely do that by working collectively. At a nationwide stage, the BHF, Resuscitation Council UK, St John Ambulance and all 14 ambulance providers throughout the UK got here collectively to create and roll out this progressive new system.

We applaud the Daily Express marketing campaign to succeed in 100,000 defibrillators on The Circuit and urge everybody who takes care of a defibrillator to register it on The Circuit at the moment – it might save a life.

- Dr Charmaine Griffiths is chief government on the British Heart Foundation