LIVES are being put at risk because of inconsistent deployment of community defibrillators around the area, according to the founder of a campaign to establish a network of the life-saving devices.

Brian Firth, founder of Public Access Defibrillators UK, said that the machines — used to deliver a shock to people who go into cardiac arrest to restart their hearts — are often unusable because they haven’t been reset and sometimes missing from their locations completely.

Mr Firth, of Guiseley, said the situation has worsened since the transfer of a database of all working Community Public Access Defibrillators (CPADs) from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service to what is known as the “Circuit”, managed by the British Heart Foundation, with a Defibrillator Guardian responsible for ensuring the device is ready to be used.

He said: “It is difficult to determine where the fault lies due to the lack of clarity from those involved.

“There have been at least three occasions during the last 12 months where people have gone into cardiac arrest and died with no deployment of CPADs that were well within the defined distance of 600 metres, one being only 60 metres away from the incident.

“There have also been numerous occasions where defibrillators have been deployed to an incident without notification to the defibrillator owner/guardian, and often left on the database as still being available and rescue ready when in fact it may not have been.

“It may have used pads or indeed still to be returned to the cabinet. Furthermore, without that notification the Guardian is not given the opportunity to ensure that it is actually rescue ready.

“This has actually happened so often over the last 12 months that we took every one of our CPADs offline for two weeks until we were given an assurance that the problem was resolved. However, it is clear that problems with deployment and reporting still exist.

“There was a recent instance where one of our most used defibrillators was thought to have been stolen as it was absent from the cabinet for days, possibly a couple of weeks, with no clarification from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service as to when and where it had been deployed to, if such was the case.”

Mr Firth launched his campaign in 2013 following the death of a customer at Morrison’s supermarket in Guiseley and it emerged that there wasn’t a CPAD available within a seven mile radius.

His concerns about the current situation were echoed by Leeds City Councillor for the Otley and Yeadon ward, Ryk Downes, whose life was saved six years ago by one of the CPADs. Cllr Downes said: “I was very lucky in 2016 when I went into cardiac arrest while out running and was brought back to life by a nearby defibrillator.

“Since then I have fundraised to provide three additional defibrillators, one of which then saved the life of John Goldthorp, a well known Yorkshire cricketer. I am so grateful that under the old system there were no problems deploying and accessing the defibrillator that saved my life, but I am saddened to see glitches arising since the link with the Circuit that are resulting in other people not being given the chance of life that I had. We just need to get these deployment issues resolved.”

A spokesperson for Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust said: “During the last three months (June, July and August 2022), Yorkshire Ambulance Service has activated 1,564 community public access defibrillators (cPADs) across Yorkshire and the Humber using The Circuit database.

“Delivering a shock from a defibrillator as soon as possible after a cardiac arrest gives patients the best chance of survival. The Circuit shows Yorkshire Ambulance Service the location of the nearest defibrillator available for public use, which may be in a local shop, restaurant or office block, and allows us to direct callers to collect it and treat patients who have suffered a cardiac arrest in the community.”

They said the defibrillator based at the Morrisons store in Yeadon was removed temporarily, following its use at an incident, for reasons of immediate security and has since been returned to the location for when it is next required.

Judy O’Sullivan, Director of Innovation in Health Programmes at the British Heart Foundation, said: “The Circuit is a national defibrillator database that provides the ambulance services with data on registered defibrillators. It synchronises every 60 seconds with the live dispatch systems of every ambulance service across the UK allowing them to utilise this data as they see fit in an emergency.

"To date, no ambulance service has reported to the BHF that The Circuit has led to an adverse outcome for a patient in an emergency.

“If anyone is concerned about the emergency response to a cardiac arrest, it should be reported to their local ambulance service so that a formal investigation can be carried out. The Circuit now has over 50,000 defibrillators registered across the UK, and we would urge anyone who owns or looks after a defibrillator to register it on The Circuit today.”