Defibrillator Report September 2018

Author: Carole Oliphant Parish Clerk

At the last Parish Council meeting I was tasked with sourcing a maintenance contract for the Parish Defib. Using my other hat as parish Liaison Officer for MDDC I asked what other parishes were using and if they would recommend anyone.

Quite a few of the Parish Council’s like us do not have anything in place and as we bought the defib is down to us to maintain it. I didn’t really get a consensus on any good providers.
Other Parish Council’s have entered into 4 year agreements with the South West Ambulance Trust. This is the comment from Down St Mary:

"The Down St Mary Parish Council have used the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, to supply our two Defibrillators. It’s an 8 year Turnkey arrangement, because the Trust supply’s the Defibrillators and the Heated Cabinets, change the electrode pads when used or are time expired They register them, and there locations with the emergency services.

The arrangement also covers replacement batteries when they are time expired, replace the defibrillator after 4 years, which is the life of the defibrillators. Also covered is the replacement of the defibrillators if they are lost or stolen, they also provided the Training for the community."

I contacted South West Ambulance today and confirmed the above but they say that the defib’s they use last about 8 years not 4. They do not offer the maintenance agreement for already installed defib’s bought by Parish Council’s.

Now a few things I have learnt:
• Our Defib is not registered with SW Ambulance service so they do not know it exists and would therefore not use it in an emergency
• The Defib should be inspected on a monthly basis (to ensure ready for use, cabinet alarm sounds and the strobe is working-monitoring the dates on the pads/battery)
• The Defib doesn’t last forever, we need to check the manufacturers expiry date (some only last 4 years)
• The cost of a 4 year lease agreement with SW Ambulance is an upfront fee of approx £1800 then £450 per year after 4 years
• Defib’s have an expiry date which can be as little as 4 years

I don’t know and have not seen any of the research that went into the decision to outright purchase a defib or of the discussions by the ‘defib group’ about the long term maintenance of it but I suspect that the purchase was the only aspect considered.

Moving forward, the defib was installed in April 2016 (?) and therefore it seems it COULD expire in April 2020 (although this would need to be checked with the manufacturer of the parish machine). I would suggest that a decision is made on the expiry of the defib about the long term future of a parish defib but in the meantime that a designated Councillor completes the monthly checks and if batteries or pads expire the Council replaces them. We provide instructions in large print in the cabinet along with a list of volunteers who would be willing to help.

I would suggest that you put an amount in the budget each year to cover replacement parts for the current defib (£200?) and also a contingency fund each year to ‘save’ for a loan contract for when the defib does expire.
I would also suggest that the Defib is registered with SW Ambulance trust so they are aware of it.