Improving out of hospital care across the North East with the GoodSAM app
On average, there is less than 10% chance of a patient surviving a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital – working with GoodSAM, the aim is to improve the statistics and ultimately improve survival rates across the region.
In 2019, NEAS switched on the GoodSAM app, a mobile app that alerts community first responders and GoodSAM volunteers to incidents. All responders are clinically trained staff who volunteer their time when off-duty to perform life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Since then, there are over 300 NEAS responders which are deployed to over 100 cases a month. The service is continuing to recruit more NEAS responders to help increase the number of incidents attended which will also improve out of hospital survival rates.
Systems and Resilience Manager, Mark Hagain said: “When someone dials 999 and reports a patient as ‘not conscious and not breathing’, in addition to dispatching an ambulance, the three nearest GoodSAM responders within a 500-metre radius will also be automatically alerted by the GoodSAM app to perform life-saving CPR.
“We are working hard to boost our numbers of responders to ensure there are more chances at providing care to those who really need it and to increase out of hospital care.”
GoodSAM is already working in partnership with ambulance services in London, North West, Wales and East Midlands as well as further afield in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, USA, Canada and South Africa.