South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust is
inviting schools and community groups to get involved in a
worldwide initiative to learn how to save a life.

The Restart a Heart campaign is an annual initiative led by the
Resuscitation Council (UK) in partnership with organisations
including the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

In the sixth annual Restart a Heart day, on and around Wednesday
16 October, SECAmb will join an alliance of organisations from
across the world, including ambulance services in the UK, to
increase both public awareness of cardiac arrest and the number of
people trained in life-saving CPR.

SECAmb first took part in the initiative in 2016. Since then,
working with local partners including Kent Fire and Rescue Service,
in excess of 30,000 children and adults have been received CPR
training as part of the initiative.

Every year, more than 30,000 people suffer cardiac arrests
outside of hospital in the UK. If this happens in front of a
bystander, who starts CPR immediately before the arrival of the
ambulance, the patient’s chances of survival significantly
increase.

SECAmb Head of Community Engagement David Wells said: “We’re
delighted to be participating once again in this extremely
worthwhile annual initiative. Our involvement will ensure that
hundreds more people will be trained in how to perform CPR. These
numbers will add to the huge number of people trained by our
Community First Responder teams and staff every year.

“Learning how to save a life is an essential skill and I’d urge
everyone to arrange to be trained. It is a skill people can carry
with them throughout their lives. By giving people the confidence
to act quickly and start performing CPR, prior to the arrival of
ambulance crews, more lives will be saved across our region.”

Any schools or groups interested in taking part in this year’s
Restart a Heart programme are asked to express their interest with
SECAmb. The Trust will endeavor to meet all requests as part of
this year’s programme of training. SECAmb will look to fulfill any
requests which cannot be met as part of this year’s program at a
later date.

For more information please email
restartaheart@secamb.nhs.uk