The first of many brand-new defibrillators has been installed at DHU Healthcare’s 111 Advice Centre in Oldbury, providing life-saving support to our colleagues and those living and working nearby.
Our Oldbury 111 Advice Centre in the West Midlands is the first DHU site to benefit from one of the new units, whilst those working on the site were also supported by a training session delivered by our resuscitation team on how to use the defibs and the latest CPR techniques.
Bobby Qayum is DHU’s Clinical Mandatory Trainer and Resuscitation Lead, he told us: “CPR is a life saving skill so to be able to offer training on a regular basis, not just to our own colleagues but to local communities as well, is something on which we pride ourselves. It encourages our individuals to use these skills if a situation develops where a patient needs support whilst waiting for the paramedics or medical experts to arrive.
“The defibrillators are an essential part of this and we’re so pleased to be in a position to equip our sites with new units that will be compliant with future changes to safety legislation. The machines have instructions on how to use them and have the potential to save lives so, to have one in or near your place of work is an essential part of keeping people safe.”
Provides the confidence and ability to save a life
Bobby and the team were at Oldbury to provide their Basic Life Support (BLS) session, a ‘pop-up’ opportunity to demonstrate and learn essential life-saving skills. Including physical demonstrations on a dummy, it provides a safe environment to understand how to keep a person alive until emergency services arrive in the event of a cardiac arrest.
Bobby added: “We’ve provided these sessions across our DHU sites, in the community and to medical students and it has proven to be a huge success. By enabling people the opportunity to demonstrate and practice the very specific actions needed to provide CPR, it gives them the confidence and ability to save a life if they find themselves in a real-life situation.”
Stephen Bateman is Chief Executive of DHU Healthcare, he added: “We are a not-for-profit, Community Interest Organisation and take our social responsibilities very seriously. This defibrillator is the first of a rollout of brand new machines across our DHU sites and we intend them to be available for anybody in the community or neighbouring organisations who needs to use it.
“As a provider of urgent and emergency health service to the NHS and our partners, it is our duty to ensure we have life-saving capabilities on our sites and pleased to see that we have accomplished that. I’d like to thank Bobby and his BLS training team for ensuring our teams are equipped with the knowledge of how to use these machines and to our Estates and Procurement teams for bringing them in and making them available to our sites.”