Life-saving app used in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire to be spread out across the county

Appropriately trained off-duty EEAST frontline staff and community first responders have been responding to alerts via the GoodSAM app on their smart phones since June.

The sooner effective cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is started, the better the chances of survival for the patient. If a defibrillator is readily available, patients are six times as likely to survive.

Since going live, EEAST has seen great examples of cases where GoodSAM responders have attended cardiac arrests and these patients have since been discharged from hospital. There have also been many cases where patients have gained a return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC).

EEAST has announced that from December 13 the pool of GoodSAM volunteers will include non-EEAST registered health care professionals. This means that if you are a health care professional with a registered governing body you can sign up to GoodSAM today.

You will be part of a lifesaving team working with the East of England Ambulance Service to improve the outcome for patients in cardiac arrest in a pre-hospital environment.

Nicholas Jones, senior operations centre manager, said: “This is excellent news for members of the public. Having seen the success of the system since June we are keen to continue bringing the benefits of GoodSAM to the region.

“By connecting a community of appropriately trained and accredited volunteers, our collaboration with GoodSAM is clearly saving lives across the region.

“By providing quality CPR in the first few minutes following cardiac arrest we are able to give the patient the best chance of survival. The partnership will not affect or be a substitute for standard ambulance or CFR dispatch. Those resources will continue to be sent to the scene in the usual way. We are excited to expand our pool of volunteers to other health care professionals across the East of England.”

To sign up go to https://www.goodsamapp.org/regResponder and enter your details. Make sure to have a form of ID ready to upload which evidences your registration (i.e. work ID card, HCPC ID etc). Once you have registered this will be sent to GoodSAM or EEAST to review and approve your application.

EEAST staff and community first responders can sign up to GoodSAM and select EEAST as their organisation.

Registered health care professionals can sign up to GoodSAM and select GoodSAM as their organisation – GoodSAM will review and approve the application.

While awaiting approval you can get ready and download the GoodSAM Responder app onto your smart phone. Once you are approved, log into your device and you will be ready to go.