Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest data linkage project: 2017-2018 results

Summary of main findings

• The number of patients with OHCA that had resuscitation attempted in the community was stable at 3,484 (compared to 3,455 in 2016/17) while data linkage completion continues to improve with 88.7% of OHCA cases linked in 2017/18 (compared with 73.0% in 2011/12).
• There has been little change in the mean age of OHCA patients (66 years) or the male vs female split (64% vs 36%).
• Bystander CPR rates have increased to 55.5% in 2017/18 compared with 49.9% in 2016/17, and more patients had a pulse on arrival at hospital than in previous years with 'Return of Spontaneous Circulation' (ROSC - all rhythms) up to 23.3% in 2017/18 from 20.2% in 2016/17.
• Survival at 30 days was unchanged at 8.3% of all worked arrests in 2017/18 compared to the previous year. Expressed as the number of survivors per million of the Scottish population, this was 53 survivors/million in 2017/18 which shows a sustained increase when compared to 45 survivors/million in 2014/15, the year before the official launch of the Strategy.
• People living in most deprived quintile (SIMD1) continue to have around twice as many OHCA as those in the least deprived quintile (SIMD5). Arrests in SIMD1 areas happen at a younger age (8 years younger on average) and are more likely to be fatal than those occurring in SIMD5. People in less deprived areas (SIMD5) are more likely to receive bystander CPR (60% in SIMD5 vs 56% in SIMD1). They are also more likely to have an initial cardiac rhythm treatable with defibrillation (31.7% SIMD5 vs 25.5% SIMD1).