Alcester Defibrillators

Together we CAN make Alcester safer!

On Saturday 27 April 2024, I was part of a 6-person group, who helped a young man back to life at the Greig Leisure Centre. He survived thanks to the CPR he was given plus the defibrillator in place at the leisure centre.

After arriving home at Alcester Park in the afternoon, I started thinking about where the closest defibrillator was, if - God forbid - one in my household or one of my neighbours needed one. A quick tour on www.defibfinder.uk made it clear that while Alcester might have some defibrillators. We, at Alcester Park, were too far from one with public access available 24/7. Many defibrillators are not publicly accessible and/or not available 24/7.

The British Heart Foundation recommends a defibrillator should be no further from you than 2 minutes each way, this is equivalent to a 2x 200-meter brisk walk. Their website informs that less than 10% survive an out-of-hospital cardiac, and defibrillators are currently used in less than 5% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.

After some further research involving contacting Bloor Homes (the builder), Trinity Estates (the future managing company) and Alcester Town Council. I quickly realised that something needed to change. While Bloor Homes often donate a defibrillator once they finish a housing estate, there isn’t any promise nor is there any publicly known time frame. Once the estate is complete, it’ll count 350 homes. Surrounding the estate there are all the homes on Roebuck Park, Jephcott Close, Allwoods Close, Eclipse Road, Icknield Row and Birmingham Road. To cover this area, it wouldn’t be too much with 3 defibrillators, so to begin with this was my final target, reaching for one defibrillator at the time.

The role of a defibrillator is to buy time until the emergency services arrive. Chances of survival decrease by up to 10% every minute that passes without CPR and defibrillation. In the UK there are more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year. Cardiac arrests are not something only old people suffer from. The lad, I took part in helping (back in April 2024), was physically fit and 24 years old. It can happen to us all - young and old. It can be a resident or a visitor in our home - parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren or friends.

The Bloor Homes's site office has a defibrillator but just like many others, it isn’t accessible out of working hours, when most of us are at home in the evening and during the weekends and bank holidays, where we are also more likely to have visitors.

Alcester Town Council has been very supportive and if we can fundraise for the defibrillators plus their cabinets (which protects the defibrillator from the weather and maintains a constant temperature to ensure the defibrillator battery is maintained in optimum working order), they will help us find the perfect location and make sure we get the permission to install it.

The cost of a defibrillator and cabinet is approximately £1,700 (including installation) meaning we need to raise £5,100 for the 3 sets needed. On top of this, we also need to keep in mind there will be running costs for each defibrillator. I've been advised by a member of the Alcester Community First Responders to estimate £10 per month per defibrillator. This means 3 defibrillators will cost an additional £720 over the first 2 years. Each donation via this GoFundMe will be deducted a transaction fee of 2.9% + 25p. Which is why, I have estimated a total cost of £6,000 for the project. However, Alcester Town Football Club managed to raise £1,400 at their Boxing Day 2024 event in memory of Clive Bennett, and these funds will go directly into paying for the majority of the first defibrillator. This means I’ve been able to lower the fundraising target to £4,820, which includes the GoFundMe-fee.

Just because I’ve made an estimate for the first 2 years of life for the 3 defibrillators, they will still need a new battery on average every 2-5 years plus new pads after every use. Therefore, I have decided to let this fundraising continue to make sure, we can keep the defibrillators in good working order in the future. If we manage to fundraise more than the cost of keeping them running, it’s the plan to start supporting the wider Alcester community in getting defibrillators and of course finance their maintenance as well.

I hope the community of Alcester will pull together and help make all of Alcester a safe place to live. Our chance of survival shouldn’t be dependent on where in Alcester we live.

Together we WILL make Alcester safer!

A huge thank you to all of you, who have supported the fundraising already, and especially those of you, who have taken part in the fundraising work:

• Run Alcester

• Alcester Town Football Club

• The family and friends of Clive Bennett

• Walls and Ceilings International

• The Holly Bush

• Alcester Academy

• MKMA Karate

This is a true testament to Alcester at its best.