CARS Ideology
Teaching staff in England, are now the single largest group of AED/Defibrillator custodians, outside the Emergency Services. Our ideology was founded on providing psychological care for those who may have suffered, as a result of their own good deed, that of assisting in a deployed AED cardiac arrest resuscitation attempt.
Whilst our remit has grown to cover other workplace traumas, death, bereavement, physical violence, Critical Incidents and Threat to Life events, there is thankfully still a growing and increasing provision of this life saving equipment.
Indeed, supply of this equipment in any working environment is a welcome and significant step in the preservation of life, but it does require staff to intervene and deploy, some of whom will suffer distress as a result and for some this may be debilitating and profound. One only needs to think for seconds on the nature and details of the event, to understand that.
At this point it is worth considering that there exists, comprehensive and published clinical evidence that recognises this and as such, this harm may be deemed as ‘foreseeable’. The irony is that these research findings, bring the law of Duty of Care into play.