The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Group says app used in Fife could save ‘many more lives’
MSP Willie Rennie urges Scottish Ambulance Service to meet East Neuk group to discuss technology
The Scottish Ambulance Service has agreed to meet operators of a lifesaving app being used in Fife, with a view to exploring whether it can be rolled out across Scotland.
GoodSAM, which alerts qualified volunteers to medical emergencies, is already used by the NHS in large parts of England.
The Scottish Ambulance Service has agreed to meet GoodSAM following a request from North East Fife MSP Willie Rennie.
The Liberal Democrat politician said: “Especially in more remote communities, where the emergencies services take longer to reach, it is important that we use every available resource to save lives.
“We need to do this safely but I want us to explore every possibility.”
The First Responders are already embracing this new technology but in a limited way, said a spokesperson, because the ambulance service has not yet adopted it.
She added: “We have never, and nor will we ever, have an ambulance on every street corner but we can have a lifesaver on every corner for next to nothing. The benefits are clear and the potential is great. The cost is low and the number of lives saved could be high.”
The group partnered with the app almost a year ago and, since then, it has had 24/7 cover, with a qualified GoodSAM responder fewer than three minutes away from the majority of life-threatening emergencies.
The group feels it is vital that the ambulance service integrates the app into its control systems “to give everyone who suffers a life- threatening emergency in the East Neuk a chance of survival”.
The spokesperson said: “Our community First Responder work with the ambulance service is great but has significant limitations outwith our control; we can only provide cover 50 to 60% of the time and we just can’t arrive quickly enough in the majority of cardiac arrests to make that initial lifesaving difference.
“Adding the GoodSAM app to all of the other community resuscitation tools will undoubtedly save many more lives in the East Neuk.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: “The Scottish Ambulance Service has a dedicated team leading our efforts to improve survival from sudden cardiac arrest, which supports Scotland’s unique national out of hospital cardiac arrest strategy to train more people in CPR and save more lives.
“We aim to improve performance at every stage of the chain of survival, and this includes improving the use of technologies, of which GoodSAM is one, to support effective community delivered CPR and defibrillation.”