CARE zones: helping communities save lives after cardiac arrest
When someone has a cardiac arrest outside hospital, their survival depends on what happens in the first few minutes. Early CPR and rapid use of a defibrillator can double or even triple the chance of survival. Yet across Scotland, access to this early help is uneven. Cardiac Arrest REscue zones (CARE zones) are a new initiative designed to change that by helping communities respond quickly and confidently to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Led by the Resuscitation Research Group at the University of Edinburgh, CARE zones work in partnership with local councils, the Scottish Ambulance Service, Save a Life for Scotland (SALFS) partners, and crucially, local communities themselves. The approach is deliberately ‘hyper-local’, working at the level of individual communities, and ‘data-led’, meaning decisions are guided by local data rather than guesswork, so support matches the needs and strengths of each area.
Rather than relying on a single solution, CARE zones focus on five connected areas that together strengthen the community response:
- School CPR awareness sessions, equipping young people with lifesaving skills
- Community CPR awareness, giving residents the confidence to act in an emergency
- GoodSAM responders, alerting nearby volunteers when a cardiac arrest occurs
- Public Access Defibrillators (PADs), placed where they are most likely to be used, guided by the PADmap tool (www.padmap.org)
- Cardiac responder schemes, supporting trained local volunteers to reach patients quickly
Together, these “levers” help ensure the right help reaches the right person, at the right time.
CARE zones are already underway in Dumfries and Galloway, supporting local responder schemes and strengthening community readiness, with plans to expand to other parts of Scotland.
Saving a life after cardiac arrest doesn’t start with an ambulance, it starts in the community. CARE zones are about making sure every community is ready.
Find out more about the work in Dumfries and Galloway:
https://www.scottishambulance.com/news/glenkens-community-cardiac-responders/
