Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest - A Strategy for Scotland Review 2015 - 16

Executive Summary

This Review reports on the activities and achievements of the Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest ( OHCA) Strategy for Scotland to September 2016.

The Strategy was devised and is being delivered in partnership with public services, voluntary organisations and communities, building on existing work by services, communities and individuals.

The Strategy set the ambition for Scotland to be an international leader in OHCA outcomes by 2020. This is underpinned by two high level aims:

• To increase survival rates after an OHCA to save 1,000 additional lives by 2020.
• To equip an additional 500,000 people in Scotland with Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation ( CPR) skills by 2020 as an essential staging post to increasing rapid bystander intervention in OHCA.

The early priorities in the Strategy are actions to increase effective bystander intervention at an OHCA since it is here that the most improvement in survival and outcomes will be achieved.

Key achievements in 2015/16 are:

At least 60,000 people have been trained in CPR since the public launch of the Strategy. This is a strong start and provides the base to build and accelerate the rate of CPR training.

Formation of Save a Life for Scotland ( SALFS), a partnership of organisations that has come together to increase CPR and defibrillation training amongst the population and heighten the awareness of OHCA. This CPR training has taken place in a variety of places including:

• Teaching and engaging young people through working with primary and secondary schools
• Training social and sports club members in community and club halls
• Providing training and raising awareness amongst the general public in shopping malls and at major events notably the Edinburgh Tattoo.

Establishing the Save a Life for Scotland website www.savealife.scot and social media presence on Facebook (Save a Life for Scotland) and Twitter (@savealifescot, #savealifescot). These are used to raise awareness of CPR activity and signpost people to training opportunities

Co-responding trials, that involve simultaneous dispatch of both Scottish Ambulance Service and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to an OHCA to reduce response times, have been run in ten areas.

The OHCA Data Linkage Project has linked OHCA data from the Scottish Ambulance Service with hospital data and deaths data. This is key to measuring progress towards the Strategy aims, as well as providing an evidence base to inform future plans. This Review contains the first published findings.

Source: OHCA Data Linkage Project, University of Edinburgh / Scottish Government. Figures relate to combined data between 2011-2014/15