Defibrillators have been budgeted for byFrodsham Town Council’s

Dec 3 2009 Chester Chronicle

DEFIBRILLATORS in Frodsham are a closer to being a reality after the town council has allocated £5,000 in its budget to pay for them.

In a bid to better cardiac care in the town four defibrillators will be placed at key sites around the busy market town and the town council has included £5,000 in its estimated 2010/11 budget to provide four defibrillators to kickstart the community project.

Cheshire West and Chester councillor Andrew Dawson – leader of a town council working group looking at ways of improving local first-aid provision – said he was “delighted with the complete consensus among councillors to support the project”, following a presentation last week by Robert Hussey, Responder Manager for the North West Ambulance Service.

“It’s early days but we have earmarked funding to get this moving and now need to ensure enough people are trained,” said Cllr Dawson, who suggested businesses might be interested in helping to maintain the project by sponsoring a defibrillator, which costs around £1,000.

He said local Cheshire West and Chester councillors had pledged up to £3,000 of their individual discretionary funding pots to support the scheme and were already considering the possibility of rolling the scheme out to cover the authority’s entire area.

The equipment could be strategically placed in buildings such as supermarkets and other high footfall areas, ideally accessible within a three or four minute walk.

Councillor Dawson suggested the town council could go one step further and build up a Community First Responder Team, with basic life support, casualty management training and equipped with defibrillators, who would be on rota call to attend community emergencies and provide vital early care until the ambulance arrives.