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There have been concerns raised about liability issues where an AED is installed on the premises.

Our experience to date is that liability cover is not an issue as long as IHF/AHF accredited training has been undertaken, and your insurer advised. To try and clarify the position we have included the following information. The Resusitation Council (UK) has taken legal advice on the area of liability and we have reproduced an extract from their web site below.

Provision of AED

Currently there is no legislation in place in the UK or Ireland that mandates the provision of an AED in the workplace.

There is an opinion that the Safety, Health and Welfare at work Act 2005, may however, place a greater onus on a business to exercise greater care in the consideration of what protective and preventative measures should be implemented within the workplace. This could include the provision of an AED more…

In event of usage

Liability and legal opinion

• A member of the general public with no special resuscitation training will only be considered negligent if he performs an act that a reasonable and prudent man in his position would not have done in the same situation, or omits to do something which a reasonable man would have done.

• The standard by which he will be judged is therefore even lower than that of a non-professional first-aider.

• Whether intervening under a positive duty of care or under an assumed duty of care, a person who attempts resuscitation will only be legally liable if the intervention leaves a casualty in a worse position than he would have been in had no action been taken at all. It is difficult in the circumstances under consideration to see how a rescuer’s intervention could leave a casualty worse off since in the case of cardio-pulmonary arrest a victim would, without immediate resuscitation, certainly otherwise die.

• Furthermore, if an AED is being used, it will only permit the administration of a defibrillatory shock when its sophisticated electronic algorithms determine that ventricular fibrillation is present and, since patients in this state are actually clinically dead, it is unlikely that any intervention with this device could make any situation worse.

  Extracted from a seven page document prepared by the Resusitation Council (UK) www.resus.org.uk/pages/legal.htm