Let’s start with the important equipment we must have ready in case of an emergency.

We all must adopt a proactive approach and check that we are ready for an emergency.
Patient safety literature has highlighted incidents of serious harm due to deficiencies in
emergency equipment, checking and availability. In an emergency, equipment must be
immediately available and ready for use, so it is crucial that this is checked on a daily basis
and after each emergency.

It is important that you are all familiar with your emergency trolley and its contents.

Trolleys should be checked in daylight working hours and not on night shifts. The rationale
for this is the defibrillators are programmed to carry out their readiness safety checks in the
morning and then if any issues or faults are detected, they can be picked up by the staff
checking the trolley in the morning. They are then able to refer this to the relevant team or
teams, for example the medical engineers. If you note any faults or issues out of hours you
must contact the on-call medical engineer via switchboard.