Where is the nearest defibrillator to me?
Its all very well having a defibrillator in your locality, but often it can be hard to know where they are situated.
It is easy when there is a big yellow/red/green cabinet that houses them – much easier to spot – but often clubs, schools and others can have defibrillators housed in their back rooms, tucked away behind a bar, or even in the store room if they have been lucky enough to never have to use it.
The simplest way of finding out where you nearest defib is by using the following website and putting in your postcode:
This might help you if you are thinking your community needs one, or perhaps you are about to be trained on them. However, some groups do not register their defib and so the website should be used in conjunction with a conversation with your nearest first responder (you could do this by ringing your local community police officer and finding out who they are). For example at the time of writing on a national defib locator website, two in Turtle’s nearest public defibs and cabinets are not registered – so whilst they are public, with a box, when typing in the postcode they don’t appear on the map.
The Circuit
In 2018 the British Heart Foundation (BHF) started a project in conjunction with Microsoft to set up ‘The Circuit’, a new National Defibrillator Network. Their aim is to have a defibrillator location database for use by all of the UK NHS Ambulance Trusts. However, this national database is not open to the public, its only for use by the NHS. The tool does allow site caretakers to manage their site though, so if you are responsible for your site, you will be invited to set it up on the circuit and manage the site from there.
Are all defibrillators registered?
The simple answer to this is unfortunately no. There is no legal obligation to register defibrillators and therefore some defibs are not registered.
In an emergency, the local ambulance service should know where they are (when you call 999 the handler should be able to tell you where your nearest one is), but they are not all in the public domain.
Register my defibrillator
As you can see, if you do have a defib and cabinet, or are thinking of getting one, it is vital you register the defib with the local ambulance service and on the website, so that everyone is aware – after all, they are there to help save lives.
Please visit the following page which details how to register your defib. https://www.turtledefibcabinets.co.uk/register-your-defib/