The Oliver King Foundation Visits Home Instead Cleveland

At Home Instead Cleveland we understand the importance of ensuring our team always increase knowledge and personal development to ensure we can provide the highest standard of care across Teesside. This week we had the pleasure of welcoming the “Oliver Kind Foundation” to come and deliver vital training on Automated External Defibrillators.

Around 60,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur every year in the UK. The UK survival rate is around 8% which is much lower than in other developed countries. Statistics show that less than 1 in 10 people survive a sudden cardiac arrest. However, studies showed that if an AED had been used the survival rate increased massively to 40%.

Our day started with the heart wrenching story from Mark King, the father of Oliver King.

Oliver King was a 12-year-old boy who attended King David High School in Liverpool, whilst winning a swimming race in a PE lesson he tragically suffered a sudden cardiac arrest due to a condition known as Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS).  This condition kills 12 young people under the age of 35 every single week in the UK. Sadly, there was no lifesaving defibrillator on hand, and for every minute that passed his chances of survival dropped significantly.

In his memory, The Oliver King Foundation’s work has saved 69+ lives, placing over 5,900 lifesaving defibrillators across the UK and 135,00 staff trained in CPR and defibrillation. The Oliver King Foundation exists to ensure that no other family has to suffer a similar loss to that of Oliver King.

Mark told us of his tireless journey over the years to get the British government to introduce an AED into every school across England by law. Hearing his story and the challenges he has overcome was nothing short of inspiring.

In 2023 this landmark moment has finally been accomplished and the delivery of defibrillators began in January 2023 to all state funded schools in England. The deliveries of the first defibrillators mark the start of a roll out of over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 state-funded schools by the end of the academic year. An internal cabinet is being provided to secondary schools that are receiving two or more defibrillators, so one can be placed at the school’s sports facility, where a cardiac arrest is more likely to happen.

In addition to this Mark travels the length and breadth of the country delivering training on the devices and delivers devices to those in need. Many children who have been unable to return home from hospital due to no access to the devices have had one personally supplied and delivered by the foundation which has enabled them and their families to enjoy life outside the hospital wards.

Our team were moved to tears listening to Marks story and we would like to say the biggest thankyou to Mark and the Oliver King Foundation for coming to Cleveland to deliver our new AED and deliver the training should we ever need to use the device.

If you are interested in acquiring an AED/training or you would like to help the Oliver King Foundation raise funds for this much needed mission, please visit: https://theoliverkingfoundation.co.uk/