Frequently Asked Questions
About Defibrillators

A defibrillator is a device that delivers a very specific, controlled, dose and type of electrical energy to the heart of a casualty who is in cardiac arrest. This shock is known as defibrillation, and it’s an essential part in trying to save the life of someone who’s in cardiac arrest.

They are often referred to as simply defib or defib equipment.

Defibrillators come in various sizes and formats. Some are designed to be used by highly trained, advanced medical practitioners – paramedics for example, and Doctors.

Others are designed to be used by people with either no or limited previous training. Here at Defib Solutions, we specialise in providing defib equipment sales, training and support for what is generally described as public access defibrillators or privately owned equipment that a business or organization might provide in order to protect employees, customers or service users.

These defibrillators are AED type, standing for Automatic (it has the ability to autonomously analyse a casualty’s condition and instruct a rescuer accordingly) External (Two ‘sticky’ electrodes are placed on the ‘external’ chest area of a casualty) Defibrillator (It will deliver a controlled and appropriately dosed electrical shock to a casualty’s heart in order to re-start normal heart function)

They are small, lightweight, self-contained electrical devices that should be mobilised in the event of a medical emergency.

From £850 to buy or £27.50 / month to rent (no fixed term). If you are buying a defibrillator from us we will be keen to advise you on the most suitable machine for your operating environment. Please contact us, we will be happy to discuss the best options for your organisation.

Typically ten to fifteen years service. So long as equipment is looked after, and battery packs and electrode pads are still available they can remain in service indefinitely.

There are several manufacturers and global defibrillator brands. At Defib Solutions we only provide well-known brand leading defibrillator equipment that we are confident will provide enduring and highly reliable service.

Generally, newly purchased equipment comes with a 5 to 10 year manufacturers warranty depending on the brand and model.

They don’t – AED’s use very refined, robust, solid state technology and therefore have no moving parts. They do not need external service or maintenance contracts (unless specifically stated in the manufacturers guidance – we have never seen this, but of course we would not offer advice that is contrary to manufacturers guidance).

At regular time intervals (normally daily, weekly and monthly), AED’s run their own self-diagnostic system checks. If any problems are detected an AED will alert a ‘system fault’ by either sounding an alarm and / or flashing an indicator light.

By one means or another it will alert that it needs some attention.
The device may still perform a rescue successfully, however it may be low on power or need new electrode pads for example.

Some AED’s will sit on standby for up to five years without any attention needed. Simply replacing the battery and electrode pads will have it operating for the next 5 years!

We recommend that the defib equipment is checked at least once a week.
All that is required is a quick check to ensure there are no fault or prompt indicators, and that both battery and electrode pads have not gone past their expiry date.

It is prudent to do standard visual checks to ensure there has been no inappropriate tampering or damage and that ancillary equipment is also present and correct. This should take no more than just a few minutes.

A casualty in cardiac arrest will have no blood pressure or circulatory function. Therefore no oxygenated blood is being supplied to their brain.

Brain tissue is immediately vulnerable to a lack of oxygen. Without a constant supply of oxygen brain cells die to a catastrophic degree within 3 to 4 minutes.

A rescuer will suspect a cardiac arrest if the casualty is unresponsive (unconscious) and not breathing or not breathing normally.

The vitally needed equipment is a defibrillator, however it may be several minutes until it can be mobilised and brought to the rescue.

If during these few minutes the rescuer provides CPR treatment, they will be pressing on the casualty’s chest to squeeze blood through the heart and therefore provide circulatory function.

The rescuer will also breathe into the casualty’s lungs to provide oxygen.
This will slow down the rate at which the casualty deteriorates and the endeavor is to keep the casualty viable for further treatment, in context a defibrillation shock to re-establish normal heart function and then onto a recovery.

CPR is a vital resuscitation skill and plays a major part of our ‘CPR & AED operators’ course.

We strongly advise providing training for possible rescuers.
Our half-day (3.5 hours) CPR & AED operators course has no pre-requisite training or learning. It is a stand-alone course.

Naturally, it is an ideal bolt-on course for already qualified First Aiders.
It is ideal for anyone who might find themselves needing to use the equipment. (We provide a 15% discount for training when equipment is either purchased or rented from Defib Solutions)

Candidates that have attended our courses tell us that they feel ‘confident and empowered’ to deal with a rescue effectively and often tell us that they are surprised at how easy and safe the equipment is to use to save a casualty’s life.

Our CPR & AED operators course also covers equipment care & maintenance and familiarisation with your AED.

We can provide training at your business premises for your staff.
AED Training

AED’s are perfectly safe to use and can be used by anyone even without any formal training.

We want to make this very clear – without any intervention, a casualty that is unresponsive and not breathing will die. Any rescue attempt has the possibility of improving the outcome for the casualty from a rescuer with or without training.

We do however strongly advise that when equipment is provided, likely rescuers attend competency training and regular refresh training.
The outcome for a casualty is undoubtedly going to be much better where rescuers have received robust competency training in CPR and the use of AED equipment.

Our half day 3.5 hour CPR and AED operators course can be provided at your business premises or other nearby suitable facility.

The course costs £295 and then £10 per candidate for course materials and certification.(We offer 15% discount when defib equipment is purchased or rented from Defib Solutions)

Although annual training is strongly recommended (generally by all major training providers) we appreciate that this can be cost prohibitive. For this reason our courses are certified for three years. We would advise more frequent training where possible.

No! At this time there is no statutory requirement for any business or institution to provide defib equipment.

However there are obligations under health and safety law which places a duty on employees to make first aid provision for employees (it is strongly recommended that this duty is extended to accommodate visitors, customers or service users)

This obligation requires employers to carry out a first aid needs assessment. That needs assessment will help an employer to decide if defib equipment and training is required.

If a need’s assessment suggests that defib equipment and training ought to be provided and are not made available. Then a business or institution may be sued for negligence if a person was to die in circumstances where a defibrillator and trained operator could have made a difference.

We generally find that organisations with more than 200 employees / customers have defib equipment on-site or are looking to purchase or rent equipment and training. That does not mean that you can’t buy equipment and training to protect a small team of maybe 20 people in a low risk office environment – of course you can and some organisations do.

There are three main criteria to help understand whether or not to supply on-site defib equipment and trained operators.

1 – A risk assessment for cardiac arrest events would suggest that any place where there may be lots of people, there is an increased likelihood of a cardiac arrest event based on the number of people. Defib equipment and training should be considered. (The Resuscitation Council UK tells us that we can expect 1 cardiac arrest event per 1000 people per year) The list below gives some examples.

• Shopping centres, supermarkets, department stores
• Theatres, cinemas, arenas and stadiums
• Public buildings, museums, libraries, churches
• Schools, Colleges, University’s
• Airports, train stations, boat & ferry ports
• Large workplaces, offices, manufacturing plants
• Large hotels, conference centres

2 – A risk assessment for cardiac arrest events would suggest that any place where there are vulnerable people due to the nature of activities or the age (risk of cardiac arrest increases with age) and / or infirmity of those people. There is an increased likelihood of a cardiac arrest event and therefore defib equipment and training should be considered. The list below gives some examples.

• Residential care homes
• GP Surgery’s, medical institutions, dental practices
• Health & fitness clubs, commercial swimming pools
• Gymnasiums, leisure centers, venues of sporting activity

3 – A risk assessment for cardiac arrest events would suggest that any place that is remote (by time, distance or access) from assistance by the ambulance service (list of examples follow), there is a need for self reliance and therefore defib equipment and training should be considered. The list below gives some examples.

• Isolated (by geography) business or institution premises.
• Commercial airliners
• Boats, ferries & trains

Nothing! (It is very important that no one is in physical contact with a casualty when the shock is delivered)

The electric shock is very controlled, targeted and dosed in order to re-establish normal heart function within a casualty of cardiac arrest.

An AED will only, and can only deliver a shock if it detects a catastrophic electrical output from the casualty’s heart, thus indicating that the casualty is in immediate, life-threatening cardiac arrest.

With no immediate intervention from a rescuer, the casualty will certainly die very quickly.

With the use of a defibrillator and CPR there is every possibility that we get a better outcome and a life saved.

The risk of personal injury to the rescuer is extremely low, the chance of saving a casualty’s life is very high. Therefore no one should be deterred from using an AED.

We advise that all businesses and institutions have a simple but effective medical emergency plan.

The endeavor is to get trained operators and defib equipment to a casualty within a matter of 2 – 3 minutes.

For this reason defib equipment should be centrally located in a large building in high human traffic areas where it can be accessed quickly by anyone nearby.

Main reception areas also make a lot of sense since they generally act as a communications hub and are manned by at least one person for all or most operational hours of an organization.

An emergency call to reception may be the most expeditious way to ensure local EMS (emergency medical services) are activated and that defib equipment and possibly trained operators are mobilised from reception to the casualty. Reception areas are generally high human traffic areas also.

The defib equipment ought to be sited where it can be easily and clearly seen as people enter the building (and on exiting if possible). That way everyone who sees the equipment, know’s that the building is equipped with life saving defib equipment. Some visitors to a premises may be off-duty paramedics, doctors, first aiders or anyone that is familiar and trained to use a defibrillator. The more people that are aware the better.

Defib equipment should be suitably protected by means of a cabinet (in contaminating environments – workshops, manufacturing, milling) or wall mounted on a wall bracket (in clean environments – offices, medical institutions).

Signage to draw attention to the equipment is also recommended, and signs can be placed in all high traffic areas to inform the location within the building of defib equipment.

Large buildings or complexes may need more than one defibrillator and many trained operators, together with a simple medical emergency plan to get trained operators and equipment to the scene of a medical emergency.

We advise that defib equipment should be deployed for all events where someone collapses, even a faint, that way everyone gets into the mode of operation by which the defibrillator will be deployed for all collapses.

The defib equipment should be deployed at the request of anyone trained to use the equipment, first aiders or anyone who is best placed to use it for a casualty who is believed to be having a cardiac-related event. That might be signs & symptoms of a heart attack, angina or a poorly casualty that explains they have a history of cardiac-related issues – they may have had surgery or heart related procedure that they make known.

While it is always very important to mobilise your defib equipment to the scene of a medical emergency straight away, it is only going to be used (switched on and attached via the electrode pads) if the casualty is unresponsive and has stopped breathing or is unresponsive and not breathing normally.

This will indicate the possibility of a cardiac arrest and therefore it is important to start CPR and use the defibrillator immediately.

The defibrillator will apply a very specific, controlled, targeted and dosed electrical shock to the casualty’s heart should they be in cardiac arrest (the heart has stopped beating).

This temporarily (1 to 3 seconds) suspends all electrical activity in the heart and allows the heart to restart in a normal way, thus saving the casualty’s life.

We have over 10 years experience in providing defibrillator help, advice and training.

We are keen to offer competitive prices for both equipment and training.
We have expert knowledge and offer professional sales and training services.
You and your people matter the most to us and lie at the center of everything that we do.

Whether it be training or sales advice we pride ourselves on a ‘right first time and every time’ work ethic.

We don’t expect or anticipate any problems, but if we don’t deliver to our very high standards we promise to rectify the situation straight away to your complete satisfaction.