About us
Our aim is to equip an additional 500,000 people nationwide with CPR skills.
Why is CPR important?
The general assumption is that if you are going to use CPR it will be to help a stranger, but the truth is you are much more likely to need it for a loved one, friend or family member, as research shows that the most cardiac arrests happen in the home.
Recognising someone is having a cardiac arrest, calling 999 and starting CPR as soon as possible really can increase the chance of that person surviving. It is internationally recognised that bystander CPR can improve the chances of someone surviving by between 2 and 3 times. People who have learned CPR are more likely to know how to react to a cardiac arrest and be willing to start CPR.
What is the aim of Save a Life for Scotland?
The aim of Save a Life for Scotland is to equip 500,000 people nationwide with Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) skills, as part of a new strategy for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) which aims to double survival rates across the country within five years.
Reaching this level of performance would mean around 300 more lives being saved every year compared to recent years. Starting an improvement programme now could result in a total of 1,000 additional lives saved by 2020.
To achieve this, bystander CPR is critical and so we aim to equip an additional 500,000 people with CPR skills by 2020. Increasing the incidence of bystander CPR is the cornerstone of improving outcomes, increasing the likelihood of survival after OHCA by 2 or 3 times.
Meet the team
Dr Gareth Clegg
Centre for Inflammation Research, is a Clinical Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Emergency Medicine. His research group studies emergency resuscitation, with a particular focus on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Dr Clegg is also Chair of the OHCA Strategy Delivery Group. He was worked with the Scottish Government and Save a Life for Scotland to develop a new strategy.
The overarching aim of Scotland's OHCA Strategy is for Scotland to become a world leader in response to OHCA by 2020. The aims underpinning this are to increase survival after OHCA by 10% within 5 years and to reach 500,000 people with CPR skills.
Together they have also developed this guide, which aims to outline key things that individuals and communities should consider before purchasing and installing a defibrillator for use in responding to an OHCA:
Lisa MacInnes
Lisa is the Director of Save a Life for Scotland, and is the Lead Research Nurse of the Resuscitation Research Group (RRG), Edinburgh. Her research portfolio has focused upon decision-making support for those paramedics managing out of hospital cardiac arrests using live video streaming.
She has a clinical nursing management background in critical care and is an Honorary Fellow in Clinical Education with the University of Edinburgh. She chairs the Save a Life for Scotland partners meetings, and represents the partnership on the OHCA strategy delivery and reference groups.
She is a member of the MSc Clinical Education steering group, and is a postgraduate supervisor and a personal tutor for undergraduate medical students within the University of Edinburgh Medical School.
Liz Hasseld
Liz coordinates the day to day operations of the Save a Life for Scotland campaign, and is the research administrator for the Resuscitation Research Group (RRG), Edinburgh.
She manages the social media, communications and public enquiries of the campaign. She recently graduated with an Masters of Public Health (MPH) from the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine based in Lousiana, USA, where her public health analysis focused on health inequalities.
