MPA Charitable Foundation has recently lent its support to a Community Interest Company on a mission to make lifesaving defibrillators available to more people in Cheltenham, by donating £500.

Prompt use of an Automated External Defibrillator or AED can increase the chance of survival by up to 80%, if deployed in the first 2 minutes of emergency first aid.

Public Hearts Defibrillator Campaign was set up in in December 2018 by Clare Seed, Founder Director of first aid training provider, Tidal Training Direct Ltd and cardiac arrest survivor Chris Hickey, to address the lack of provision in their local area and potentially save lives.

When they started, there were no public access defibs in Cheltenham town centre to support a population of 118,000 and all its visitors. Their goal was to increase the number of publicly accessible defibs along Cheltenham High Street and surrounding areas.

October 2019 marked the start of Public Hearts community engagement and thanks to the generosity of their founding partners, Cheltenham BID they were able to facilitate Cheltenham town centre’s first Public Access Defibrillator in one of The Prom phone boxes by Franco Manca on The Promenade.

Through research, they also found that very few defibs were registered, both with the Ambulance Service or accurately listed and maintained on publicly available information sites. The pair began to raise awareness of lifesaving defibrillators in Cheltenham, sharing these locations with the South Western Ambulance Service and via a Public Hearts Defib Map.

Over the past six years they have raised funds for the purchase of defibrillators, cabinets and essential kit such as replacements pads and battery packs. Thanks to the generosity of individuals and local businesses, like MPA, they have so far placed 86 defibrillators in the Cheltenham and wider communities to help someone in the event of a cardiac arrest. Over 90% of these have been installed since Dec 2021, making Cheltenham now one of the most covered towns in the UK.

Phil McGovern, Managing Director at MPA, said: “By raising awareness of locations and increasing the numbers of lifesaving defibs available to the wider community in Cheltenham, the Public Hearts Defibrillator Campaign is helping to save lives in case of cardiac arrest. All the best to Clare and the team in continuing their great work.”

For more information on the Public Hearts Defibrillator Campaign and how to support their work, visit: https://linktr.ee/publichearts or to donate directly visit: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/publicheartsdefibrillatorcampaign