Category: Community Defibrillator

The Community Group, in conjunction with Little Waltham Parish Council, has arranged a further Defibrillator/CPR training session for residents of both Channels and Little Waltham to attend.

The session, will be held at 7.00pm on Wednesday 22nd March in The Channels Room, Beaulieu Community Centre for circa 2 hours.

The session is open to all although there is a limit of 50 people so it will be first come, first served. Please note that anyone who originally booked for the (postponed) session on 25th November will be e-mailed and given priority to re-book for the new date. The session will cover the following:

If you are unable to attend the training session, don’t forget you can find key information HERE about how to activate and use a community defibrillator. There are also additional resources about how to undertake cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the Resuscitation Council website.

The Community Group, in conjunction with Little Waltham Parish Council, has arranged a further Defibrillator/CPR training session for residents of both Channels and Little Waltham to attend.

The session will be held at 7.00pm on Friday 25th November in The Channels Room, Beaulieu Community Centre for circa 2 hours.

The session is open to all although there is a limit of 50 people so it will be first come, first served. The session will cover the following:

If you are unable to attend the training session, don’t forget you can find key information HERE about how to activate and use a community defibrillator. There are also additional resources about how to undertake cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the Resuscitation Council website.

Good news! At long last we have been notified that the Community Defibrillator is fully live and registered with the ambulance service. We have a team of volunteers that check the cabinet and equipment on a weekly basis, the majority of which have also received their awareness training.

Is is important to understand how a Community Defibrillator is activated and the core process can be found HERE. The page also contains links to helpful resources and videos.

Our Community Defibrillator is located at the entrance to Channels Park and is visible from the street, the parking area and of course the skate park & play area. The postcode is CM33PY however a more accurate way of pinpointing the location is through the What3Words service. What3Words divides the world into 3 metre squares and gives each square a unique combination of three words. It’s the easiest way to find and share exact locations and is used by the ambulance and other emergency services.

Location (What3Words): yoga.payer.blows

Lastly we are looking to run a further community awareness session (either face to face or via Zoom) in April for residents to attend and further details will be made available in due course.

Thanks to everyone that has contributed to make this project possible 🙂

Andrew Wright & Melanie Williamson
On behalf of the Channels Residents Community Group

The Community Defibrillator was installed at Channels Park in mid December and whilst the equipment is technically ‘live’, it cannot yet be used as we are still waiting for confirmation from the East of England Ambulance Service that they have registered it on their system.

The equipment is being checked on a weekly basis to ensure it is fully operational however it cannot be used until such time that the “AED Not in Service” sign has been removed.

The Defibrillator page on this website has been updated with key information about how a Community Defibrillator is activated and other guidance, including helpful videos.

In advance of wider community awareness training that is being organised, it would be worth becoming familiar with the key information as we could receive notification at any time that the device has been registered meaning it will become fully accessible.

Andrew Wright & Melanie Williamson
On behalf of the Channels Residents Community Group

The grant funding from Little Waltham Parish Council has been received and the order for the defibrillator has been submitted to the Community Heartbeat Trust. This means we are still on track for a ‘go live’ date around the end of October. 🙂

As previously advised, we have progressed with a Managed Solution Partnership which offers a cost-effective method of implementing a quality community defibrillator project that addresses the many potential liabilities, including ensuring that all governance and insurances are fully dealt with appropriately.

The Partnership Agreement contains one obligation that we must comply with. We must carry out regular weekly checks on the equipment, reporting this via the CHT WebNos Governance System. Failure to undertake the checks will invalidate the insurance aspects of the agreement.

We are therefore looking for circa 8-10 resident volunteers who would be happy to be included on the rota to ensure the device checks are undertaken and logged via the WebNos Governance System.

This will typically mean that each resident will only need to undertake a compliance check once every 2 months (which only takes about 5 minutes) and anyone on the initial rota will be invited to a face-to-face awareness training session facilitated by the Community Heartbeat Trust.

The UK Resuscitation Council guidelines indicate that community defibrillators (AEDs) should be able to be used by members of the public with or without any formal training nevertheless it is good practice for as many members of the community as possible to receive some form of training. As such, a follow up virtual awareness training session will be held via Zoom which will be available to the wider Channels resident population.

If you are willing to be part of the initial rota of residents to receive awareness training and undertake the weekly checks on our equipment, please leave your details on the volunteer form here and you will be contacted once we have an idea of potential training dates.

Andrew Wright & Melanie Williamson

A detailed grant application was submitted to Little Waltham Parish Council in August which made the case for funding to cover the capital cost of equipment, installation, set up and the first 2.5 years of a 5-year Annual Support Agreement. The application was discussed at the Parish Council Meeting on Tuesday 7th September and it was supported by councillors meaning the Defibrillator project can progress to the mobilisation stage.

We would like to thank Little Waltham Parish Council for the generous grant as this accounts for over 80% of the project costs and without it, the project would have been significantly delayed or even put on hold.

Funds raised through local initiatives will cover support costs for the remaining 2.5 years of the Annual Support Agreement (after which the position will be reviewed) and all training requirements. We would therefore like to extend a big ‘thank you’ to all residents that donated as local fund-raising was also critical to the success of the project.

The requirements for the project have been fully worked up through collaboration with the Community Heartbeat Trust so the next step is to order the equipment as specified in the grant application, sign the Managed Support Partnership agreement and arrange for installation.

The intention is to have the Defibrillator installed, training & community awareness undertaken and the device ‘live’ by the end of October 2021.

It has taken a lot of work to get to this point however the biggest hurdles have been overcome and the process should be a little bit easier from now on! Keep an eye out for further updates 🙂

Andrew Wright & Melanie Williamson