The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced that all London Underground, Overground stations and Dial-a-Ride vehicles now have life saving public access defibrillators available to be used if a passenger suffers cardiac arrest.
Article continues below
Last year, the London Ambulance Service responded to around 13,000 cardiac arrests across the capital.
Fewer than one in 10 people currently survive a cardiac arrest and for every minute that goes by without life-saving intervention like CPR and defibrillation, the chances of a person surviving cardiac arrest decrease by 10 per cent.
City Hall, the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (LAS) and Transport for London (TfL) have now completed a massive joint rollout of defibrillators across the transport network, which includes most main bus stations, and piers.
This means that every single borough now has a TfL defibrillator that any Londoner or commuter can access to help someone in cardiac arrest and TfL continues to explore how they can further provide even more across the network.
Before Sadiq became Mayor in 2016, defibrillators were installed in a very limited number of busy stations located in central London so reaching full coverage, which goes beyond to the outer boroughs, is a significant milestone for TfL, LAS and City Hall.
A number of historic defibrillators have been coming to the end of their life so this has been about upgrading those too.
From today, Londoners will also be able to find heart-shaped QR codes on every defibrillator in the TfL network. These QR codes take you straight to a video on City Hall’s website which will show you how to perform CPR and use the defibrillator, using techniques from the LAS London Lifesaver training.
The LAS has also today launched the London Lifesavers campaign in schools, starting with Year 8 students. More than 200 students from six schools will be trained with CPR and how to use a defibrillator at City Hall today.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “For every minute that goes by without life-saving intervention like CPR and defibrillation, the chances of a person surviving cardiac arrest decrease by 10 per cent. 
"That’s why I’ve made good on my commitment to maximise the numbers of defibrillators across the city, and worked with TfL and LAS to ensure every underground and overground station as well as major bus stations, dial-a-ride vehicles and all TfL piers have one publicly available. ■