Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of publically accessible defibrillators in Medway.

The Department does not centrally hold the requested information. NHS Medway Clinical Commissioning Group has been advised by the local council that there are defibrillators located across Medway, including at the Council’s Gun Wharf Office and sports centres in Medway Park, Strood, Hoo, Splashes and The Strand. This list is not definitive.

Steps are being taken to improve access to information on public access defibrillators (PADs). The British Heart Foundation (BHF) funded a project to determine if it was feasible and affordable to establish a national database of PADs and to make this available to ambulance services; the project concluded it was feasible and the BHF has now committed the funds to make it happen, and two ambulance services are currently involved in determining the structure and function of the database.

This database will later be offered to all services once shown to be safe and effective. The principal intention is to make the data available to and controlled by ambulance services, so that PAD location information is readily available when someone makes a 999 call. The BHF is conducting the development of the database with full professional guidance and with the support of the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives.