After 5 years of tireless effort, the original Scottish Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy has come to an end. With 640,000+ people familiarised with CPR and a 24% rise in bystander CPR, this strategy and the public effort behind it is truly to be celebrated. But we’re not finished yet.
Building upon the fantastic public engagement work of the SALFS partnership over the last 5 years, we are now moving on to a new OHCA strategy for Scotland. The SALFS partnership, in conjunction with support from the Scottish OHCA Strategy Delivery Group, Reference Group, and Writing Group, have spent the last year perfecting this new 5-year strategy that will enable us to improve cardiac outcomes in Scotland even further. The main aims of this new strategy are that by 2026:
- The SALFS partnership will have equipped 1 million people in Scotland with CPR skills.
- All school aged children in Scotland will have the opportunity to be equipped with CPR skills.
- We will target our work to address key inequalities in OHCA outcomes.
- Bystander CPR rates will be increased to 85%.
- Public Access Defibrillators will be placed optimally and be as accessible as possible.
- 20% of all OHCAs will have a defibrillator applied before the arrival of ambulance service.
- Survival from OHCA will increase to 15%.
- All individuals who are affected by OHCA will be offered support afterwards.
- We will address the challenge of timely communication of anticipatory care plans and decision support for front line
ambulance service crews. - We will use data to understand and address variation and seek innovative ways to improve outcomes after OHCA.
You can read the new strategy in full here: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781800047624
We know that this last year has been tough on us all, but we are hopeful for the future and cannot wait to begin implementing this new OHCA strategy for Scotland. Face-to-face CPR sessions may not be up and running just yet, but SALFS have a selection of online, COVID-safe CPR resources to help spread CPR awareness until then!
Click here for online CPR awareness resources for adults and children.
As always, a massive thank you to the wonderful SALFS partnership for their help in implementing the original OHCA strategy and for joining forces again for the next 5 years. We cannot wait to see how far we can all go to improve cardiac outcomes in Scotland. Onwards to 2026!
