Laerdal, the world renowned producer of the cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training manikin Resusci Anne, has welcomed the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Nation of Lifesavers initiative, launched by the charity on 16 October. BHF purchased over 30,000 Mini Anne Plus CPR kits from Laerdal so that community groups and secondary schools could learn CPR without incurring a cost.
Statistics reveal that approximately 24,000 (1) people suffer a cardiac arrest in the home every year. As Jon Laerdal, Managing Director, Laerdal UK, explains, “The Nation of Lifesavers CPR community programme empowers lay people to learn how to perform basic life saving skills for cardiac arrest victims. Norway has one of the highest survival rates from out of hospital cardiac arrest worldwide and this is partly because CPR training is part of the school curriculum. If the UK was to achieve the same survival rates as Norway an additional 5000 lives could be saved every year.”
To mark the launch, The British Heart Foundation, together with Yorkshire Ambulance Service, trained nearly 12,000 children in a bid to inspire all secondary schools to register for a free CPR training kit.
To enable the training Laerdal has sold over 30,000 CPR training kits to the BHF. The Mini Anne Plus kits contain 35 lightweight manikins and a ‘watch and learn’ DVD enabling individuals to carry out the training themselves. Jon Laerdal explains, “These kits will make CPR training easy and memorable in the hope that if anyone is in a situation where they need to perform cardio pulmonary resuscitation they will know how to do it.
“Our partnership with the BHF continues to grow and we are proud to be affiliated with such an inspired initiative. Our shared goals remain at the forefront of our relationship and together we strive to save at least 5000 lives every year within the UK. National campaigns like this are essential in achieving such objectives and ultimately we hope the UK becomes a leading example globally of how to implement the CPR training in schools initiative successfully, saving thousands of lives for years to come.”
(1) London Ambulance Service Cardiac Arrest Annual Report 2012/2013 – www.londonambulance.nhs.uk
