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Cardiac arrest
First responders don't shift OHCA survival
Investigating the impact of community first responders on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest outcomes in the North East of England: a retrospective cohort study
British Paramedic Journal · 2026-09-01 · Added 29 August 2026
Retrospective cohort testing whether community first responder attendance improves OHCA survival in North East England — it didn't, with survival to discharge essentially unchanged (9.6% vs 10.2%, p=0.797) after Utstein adjustment.
- Study type
- Cohort
- Design
- Retrospective cohort study
- Participants
- 7,916 adult OHCA cases (177 with CFR attendance)
- Main finding
- Survival to hospital discharge 9.6% with CFR attendance vs 10.2% without (p=0.797); public-access defibrillation was more frequent in CFR-attended cases (20.3% vs 12.2%, p=0.001)
- Caveat
- Only 2.2% of cases involved CFRs, and the cohort was restricted to cases achieving ROSC, limiting power and generalisability.
- Bottom line
- Hypothesis-generating
Why it matters in Australia (High relevance). Community first responder schemes exist across Australian ambulance services and the bystander-defibrillation question is identical here; the UK ambulance system is a close paramedic-model comparator.
Learning goal
Understand how community first responder models influence out-of-hospital cardiac arrest outcomes in the Australian context.
More
- Topic: Cardiac arrest
- Daily scan: 29 August 2026
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