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Public Petitions Committee 25 November 2020

25 Nov 2020 · S5 · Public Petitions Committee

Item of business

Continued Petitions

Public Access Defibrillators (PE1707)

David McColgan (British Heart Foundation Scotland) Watch on SPTV

Thank you very much for inviting us to the meeting today and a huge thank you to Kathleen and the Orr family for all the work they are doing in bringing the issue to Parliament. The British Heart Foundation has submitted some written evidence, which is available on the Parliament’s website. We do not support the key point of petition regarding every new or refurbished building of more than 7,500m2 having an externally fitted PAD. There are a number of reasons for that, one of which is that we believe it would exacerbate health inequalities around a possible cardiac arrest. In some areas of Scotland—Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee—there will be a major increase in the number of buildings of that size. If we were to go to somewhere like Wick or the island communities, however, we would probably not see many buildings of that size. We have concerns about that. The principle of the petition is absolutely right: more public access defibrillators are a good thing. However, we need to take a strategic approach, especially when public funds might be invested or where there are legal requirements on individuals. Two key points are needed to allow us to take that strategic approach. First, we do not know where every defib in Scotland is. If we were to think about Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, we might end up putting 15 or 20 defibs on there because of the size of the buildings, but if we were to go out to Rutherglen or Hyndland, there might not be any defibs there. A lot of international studies have shown that with defib placement, we end up with over provision in areas with lower incidents of cardiac arrest, and under provision in less remote areas. Secondly, Scotland does not have a publicly accessible registry of where cardiac arrests happen so people cannot make strategic decisions to put defibrillators in the right places. As I said, we do not have those things, but major work is being done in Scotland. The British Heart Foundation, Microsoft and the Scottish Ambulance Service have been working on the circuit and the national defibrillator network, which we hope will be able to map where the defibs are in Scotland, and allow the ambulance service to direct people to their nearest one. Gareth Clegg will probably speak to it in a moment, but the Resuscitation Research Group over at the University of Edinburgh has been working on a PAD placement project that marks where cardiac arrests are and where PADs need to go. Although we do not support the 7,500m2 provision, the conversation is really important to the understanding of how the Government, local authorities and other organisations play a role in deciding where to place defibs. Kathleen Orr’s point is absolutely right that more defibs will give people an opportunity to use them and save lives. We welcome the petition but we want to hear more conversation rather than just the 7,500m2 provision that is in the petition.

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Public Petitions Committee 25 November 2020

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