I live in North Yorkshire and the ambulance response time to remote regions varies from slow to piss poor. There is a joint NHS initiative to install community defibrillators in such locations including our parish. The community is expected to pay for them and NHS for the box - the cost is roughly £1000. Brief description here:
My initial reaction was that this should be a good idea, but concerns have been raised about legal liability of the parish council, its members personal liability and the personal liability of any well meaning Good Samaritan who tries to use it on a heart attack victim.
There is also the question of training would be users. I have heard everything from voice activated instructions so no training is needed to a days training will be given to a select few.
I'll ignore for the moment the possibility that the victim has bad indigestion and not a heart attack as I have been assured by the NHS that these cPADs are smart and will not defibrillate a good heart.
In this litigious era where every other daytime advert is along the lines of "have you been hurt in an accident that isn't *YOUR* fault? Then phone greedy lawyers for a greedier you" where do we stand on public liability for hosting such a device? What about the user?
Assuming here that the heart attack victim lives but with some serious damage or dies and the family blame the use of the cPAD for it. They get a no win no fee ambulance chasing lawyer involved - then what?
Anyone have any experience of these things positive or negative? What are the longer term hardware maintenance costs?
(cross posted to uk.d-i-y to get any feedback on installed units)
Web search hasn't turned much else up and I would prefer not to rely entirely on the NHS proponents of this initiative for all our advice.