YAS Defib Hunt Campaign Will Save More Lives

10 November 2017

A Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust (YAS) campaign has helped to identify 41 life-saving defibrillators that can now be used to help more patients in cardiac arrest.

Throughout October, members of the public were urged to post social media selfies with the kit when they were out and about as part of the YAS Defib Hunt.

Some defibrillators are bought with the best of intentions but are not registered with YAS. It is essential that the Trust knows the locations of all defibrillators so staff in our Emergency Operations Centre can direct 999 callers to them in the event of a patient suffering a cardiac arrest nearby.

The YAS Defib Hunt identified 204 defibrillators across Yorkshire, 41 of which were unknown to the Trust so they will now be added to the YAS database to help save the lives of patients in the future.

Paul Stevens, Head of Community Resilience for YAS, said: “We are delighted with the response from the general public who appreciate the importance of the life-saving equipment and helped us to identify 41 defibrillators that we didn’t know about. They will now be added to our system so we can ensure they are put to good use in the event of someone suffering a cardiac arrest.”

The campaign was run to mark Shoctober - a national initiative to raise awareness about the importance of defibrillators - and tied in with Restart a Heart Day when YAS provided cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training to more than 25,000 secondary school children on Monday 16 October 2017. A cardiac arrest occurs when a person’s heart stops pumping blood around their body and to their brain. The earlier a patient can receive CPR and a shock from a defibrillator, the greater their chance of survival.

Defibrillators are easy to use, easy to carry, provide audible instructions to the user and will not deliver a shock unless it is required. No training is required to use the equipment.

There are now 2,644 defibrillators across Yorkshire, often in yellow or green cabinets in high footfall areas, or mounted on the wall in places like leisure centres, schools, railway stations, bars and restaurants.

If you are thinking about buying a defibrillator for your community, please contact the YAS Community Resilience Department in the first instance by emailing:

If you have not registered your defibrillator, please email aed@yas.nhs.uk

To look at some of the Shoctober selfies, search #YASDefibHunt on Twitter.

Produced by: Corporate Communications Department