St Austell Brewery — which has more than 180 sites across the South West — has launched a campaign to fit defibrillators across its pub estate.
St Austell Brewery’s external relations director, Piers Thompson, at the Borough Arms, Bodmin, with Liz and Paul Williams, of the Ronnie Richards Memorial Charity
The Heart of the Community campaign was launched after the brewery identified 55 of its pubs in places which don’t currently have access to a defibrillator. The brewery aims to raise money through its Charitable Trust to buy and install them.
To kick off the campaign, St Austell has already installed defibrillators on the wall outside the County Arms, in Truro, and the Borough Arms, in Bodmin.
Pub-goers can help save lives by purchasing a portion of fish and chips. Twenty-fivepence per portion will go towards the defibrillator campaign. Alternatively, they can scan a QR code on posters. St Austell Brewery will match-fund every £1 donated by the public.
In the UK, as many as 100,000 hospital admissions each year are due to heart attacks. That’s 260 admissions each day, or one every five minutes. It’s estimated that around 1.4m people alive in the UK today have survived a heart attack.
The brewery has partnered with the Ronnie Richards Memorial Charity (RRMC) to buy the vital equipment. Co-founders Paul and Liz Williams set up the charity in memory of Liz’s brother, Ronnie, who died from sudden cardiac arrest while playing football at Penzance Leisure Centre.
The charity has been fundraising for defibrillators to be installed in schools and public places all over Cornwall for many years, and to train young people how to use the devices.
Piers Thompson, St Austell Brewery’s external relations director, visited the Borough Arms last week to mark the installation of one of the first defibrillators.
He said: “We’re really excited to be working with the Ronnie Richards Memorial Charity and launching this campaign to ensure public access defibrillators are available to many of our pub’s local communities.
“We have sites in some of the most popular places in the South West, and often in remote locations, whether that be in the countryside or on the coast. Installing lifesaving devices in over 50 of our sites is very important to us, and more importantly it will increase the likelihood of lives being saved.”
Paul Williams, from the Ronnie Richards Memorial Charity, added: “It is a privilege for the RRMC to work with St Austell Brewery on such an essential lifesaving campaign. One person dies every five minutes in the UK from sudden cardiac arrest, which can be greatly improved by using a readily available public access defibrillator (PAD).
“A defibrillator shock administered in the first minute has up to 90% chance of survival depreciating by at least 10% every passing minute without delivery. The RRMC targeted closely linked PADs in our towns and villages and a high intensity CPR & AED training program including our secondary schools, increasing the chance for lives to be saved.”
• For more information about the campaign, click here.
