Steve Jelfs: How Defibrillators Save Lives In Workplaces And Communities

Someone collapses, a crowd forms, and the most common response is to freeze. That hesitation is exactly what resuscitation specialist Steve Jelfs wants to change, and he joins us in the studio to explain how defibrillation and CPR really work when seconds matter. 

We talk through what an AED (automated external defibrillator) actually does, why it is designed for non-medical people, and how the voice prompts guide you from calling 999 to starting chest compressions and delivering a shock only when it is needed. Steve shares what he has seen across decades in the ambulance service, the Red Cross, and international clinical training, plus the simple truth that every minute of delay can cut survival dramatically. 

From a business and community angle, we dig into where defibrillators should be placed, how small businesses can think about the cost, and what “ready to use” means in practice: checking expiry dates on pads, replacing batteries, and not ignoring warning alarms. We also get into a system gap that can cost time, the need to register devices on the British Heart Foundation’s The Circuit database so ambulance control rooms can direct callers to the nearest AED, and Steve’s push for stronger expectations around registration and maintenance. 

If you want clear, practical guidance on AEDs, first aid training, workplace safety, and improving cardiac arrest survival in Stirling and beyond, this conversation will leave you better prepared. Subscribe, share it with someone who runs a workplace or community venue, and leave us a review with one thing you would do differently after listening.

Transcript

Welcome And Studio King Street

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hi, my name is Neil Monday, and I'm your host for the Sterling Business Podcast. The podcast is brought to you from Studio King Street here in the heart of Sterling. You can book our wonderful studio by going onto our website and making your booking that way, or sending uh an email to inquiries at studio kingstreet.com. Or you can simply pick up the phone and give Laura a call to make your uh make your booking. So, over to this week's episode of the Sterling Business Podcast.

Meet Steve Jelfs And His Story

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Welcome to the studio, Steve. Steve Jelfs, uh expert uh in resuscitation specialist, uh, been doing that for many, many years, and today we're going to talk about defibrillation in in general. So um uh welcome to the studio.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yeah, thank you, Neil. It's a pleasure to be here, and I'm very grateful you've uh given me the opportunity to come along and talk about what I do and the importance of defibrillation in treating sudden cardiac arrest.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Great. So some of the audience might be thinking, uh defibrillators, what has that got to do with business? Hopefully we'll we'll kind of dispel some of that, some of those myths and we'll we'll get into that. Um but uh before we kind of get into talking specifically about uh the topic uh today, but tell us a little bit about yourself, Steve. Uh what's your history, where have you come from, and what what did your career uh in and entail before we got here today?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Well, as you can tell, I'm not local, so I come from a place called Exmouth in Devon, which is a beautiful seaside place. Yeah, um and my first career was very much removed from what I do now. I went to catering college when I left school to and did my chef uh qualifications and then worked at the Savoy Hotel in London for a couple of years. Then I got quite disillusioned because of the money and the hours are pretty bad, and I joined the ambulance service in Devon, as I'd always been interested in all things medical since I was a youngster, really. And then for the next 23 years I moved around the country on promotion and ended up in Dundee as chief ambulance officer for Tayside. Then I when I left the ambulance service, I became the director of the Red Cross in Forth Valley for five years, and it was really during that time that I became involved more readily in defibrillation, although I used the manual defibrillator many times as a paramedic. I was given responsibility to set up and manage uh the defibrillation uh program for UK Red Cross volunteers. So I was sourcing manufacturers, setting up the protocols, implementing the program. And then I was head-hunted by an American company, and I took on an international clinical role in 2001, and that got me all around the world advising, training, providing clinical advice to our distribution partners.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Around defibrillators.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Around defibrillators and all things to do with CPR and resuscitation. And then the last few years I've been just working on my own, just doing the old bit here and there, mainly raising awareness and education has been my main push on this.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Right, okay, so fantastic cause. You know, we all need more people like uh you you and our lives. Um and uh hopefully we'll we'll we'll uh we'll continue to live longer as a result. So um so to be in a role like yours, you must be extremely passionate and dedicated to to the cause of resuscitation and defibrillation. So uh you know what you know it must be a hugely fulfilling and a strange kind of kind of way, right? Um so what what made you get into being you know so passionate about this and doing what you do? Because you you must be passionate to be wanting to put that message out and to advocate it to to

Why AEDs Work For Anyone

SPEAKER_00 3:56

the masses.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Yeah, I mean it's very close to my heart, if you excuse the uh pun. I think it's my service in the Amherst Service dealing sadly with many sudden cardiac arrests and treating them and many of them not surviving. And then when these automated external defibrillators came along, which are particularly uh manufactured for non-medical people to use, uh it's all sparked that interest even further. And then that period in the Red Cross when I was involved more more deeply and more intimately, led me to to really get real passion about the uh the whole subject.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So is that kind of part of the key here? It's um non-technical people, you know, Joe Public effectively being educated and trained as as to how to use defibrillators. Is that really where the where the education is as opposed to medical professional?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, they are specifically designed for non-medical people because as soon as you open the lid or switch it on, it talks you through the process. And it will only work if the patient's in cardiac arrest. And it will only work and deliver that shock. So they're ideal for you or me or anybody who's who's in a non-medical environment to use in this case of cardiac arrest, because in most cases a non-medical person will probably be the first one to come across a cardiac arrest.

Getting Devices Into Communities

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Okay, and uh so typically where do you find defibrillators and so we're in a in a town centre, city centre here. So um where would you kind of typically find these devices?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Well, they're really anywhere where people are because it's people that have cardiac arrests. And uh on LinkedIn this morning I see Sterling Bid had published a map of the devices they've actually funded and provided in this in the city. Uh-huh. So anywhere, hotels, gyms, airports, railway stations, football clubs, you know, you name it, that's where you'll find them. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

So um so what types of products do you have within your portfolio then? So defibrillators, obviously. But Defib for Life, which I think is the institution that you uh you represent, what other types of products in and around that kind of sphere of defibrillation do you uh do you offer?

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Well, as well as accessories for defibrillators like batteries and replacement pads, carry cases, cabinets that they go into, wall brackets, but we also sell first aid kits, we also sell uh specific first aid training, uh blood um kits, you know, if someone's stabbed or whatever it has a serious hemorrhage or bleed, you can treat that patient with that. So we have a whole range of first aid type equipment. But our main business is defibrillators.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Okay. And does does a defibrillator have a shelf life? Does it um once it's used, can it not be used again, or kind of how does it typically work?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Well, the actual device has a warranty. They range generally between seven to ten years, but the actual battery and the pads are replaceable. For example, the defibrillation pads which go on the patient's chest in order for the shock to be delivered, they're one use only, uh, or they might have a lifetime between two to five years, depending on the type of which device it is. Same with the battery, they have different life spans, but they're non-rechargeable, so you you insert the battery and all defibrillators have a visible and audible warning system because it tests regularly the pads to make sure they're in date and make sure they're usable. It tests the battery to make sure it's there's power in it, and it checks the internal workings of the defibrillator. If any of those are off-kilter or not working or or or expired, the device will tell you visible visibly and audibly.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Right,

Buying, Upkeep And Business Reality

SPEAKER_00 7:31

okay. So how you the route to market for these products and the customer base, the demographic that I guess and you're educating people on a day-to-day basis, businesses as as well as individuals, I guess, but how do you typically take the product to market and who do you sell it to?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

It's quite a wide question because it's quite a wide audience. I would say most of our sales probably come from the website because we have a big web presence. So people can go directly on the website and look at the devices inside, you know, which one they want to purchase, um, depending on what their budget is, for example. Also, you know, I'm talking to people all the time. For example, I was in an exhibition in Glasgow yesterday where there was a lot of interest uh on people looking at defibrillators. One of the problems we've got though is most people aren't really aware, or it's not in their consciousness, about cardiac arrests, because we all think we're immortal and we're never gonna have anything happen to us, but you know, it can happen to anybody at any time, at any age. So there's a very wide um audience for people who can purchase them. And the British Standard Institute have just updated the BS standard for first aid kits for business, uh, where they've now recommended having uh defibrillators or ADs as part of their first aid kit. So there's more I think every day there's more and more understanding coming along, but we're not really there yet. I'd like to see more people understanding what the issues are and how we can help them uh with that.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, I guess I was the the logical places would be shopping centres and high streets and places like that where you have you know lots of footfall and people kind of mulling around on a on a on a daily basis, right? But I guess if w where I was kind of going with my uh question is there's lots of small businesses, you know, whether they be retail, you know, small coffee shops, whatever, um they would potentially see you know the cost of a defibrillator as a as a as a cost to their business, right? And then they're struggling with things like business rates and things like that. So for me, I think uh a real value, and I'm sure this uh this has been thought about, would be for businesses to protect potentially crowdfund together. So, you know, three shops in a row, there's a there's a logical place on the high street to to put a device. Do you see much of that? Do you get businesses working together to, you know, fund these types of devices?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

No, not to my I've not heard of anything particularly in that respect. But I think that'd be a a good way of doing it. In a small street or a small collection of businesses, that would be a great way of of providing it.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

And you mentioned bid uh or putting defibrillate as the business improvement district, I'm assuming you meant by that. Uh what what are they actually doing uh with with regards to distribution?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Well, I only read the post on LinkedIn this morning, so the actual mechanics of it I'm not uh I'm not okay with.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Well, I'll certainly be looking into that. I'm I'm a board member of Bid, so I'll I'll uh I'll uh but I hadn't heard of that, so that's uh that that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, I mean I did the same thing in Aloha when I was working for one company some years ago, uh in Aloha, the Clapmanisher or Aloha Bid, which whatever the name of it is, uh they they purchased 12 defibrillators to place in various parts around Clap Manisher in their business facilities.

The Home Arrest Challenge

SPEAKER_01 10:47

One of the problems we have though is 75 to 80 percent of cardiac arrest happen in the home. So we're only sort of scratching the surface with the public devices. Okay. And that survival's very low, it's only between 8 to 10%, which means if you look at it the other way around, 92% of people are not surviving. Right. So until we crack somehow the home market in some way, then I can't see how survivors are increasing.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

And education of how to you know, maybe a partner or whoever, or a child who's trying to kind of save a a parent or you know, grandparent, I guess, is i it's education. It all comes back to education, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, there was a very interesting uh report on Sky News this morning. Ross Skemp, the actor, was on, involved in about um talking about how people are reluctant to get involved when they see somebody collapse in cardiac arrest.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I think or get first aid in general.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think it was something like 42% of people would only intervene. And I think that's my experience, particularly from when I was in the ambulance service. You know, people are afraid to do something. Either they don't know what to do, they're afraid they'll make things worse, or they're whatever wait for the ambulance to arrive. But when you think that for every minute you delay defibrillation and cardiac arrest, survival forced by up to 10%, it really isn't an option for the wait for the ambulance. You really have to get someone in there, start CPR chest compressions, get the nearest defibrillators, give them a shock, and save their life.

Registering Defibs And Pushing For Law

SPEAKER_00 12:14

And how are the s the uh the government, Scottish government in particular, getting behind this? So they in terms of that education, is it something that's uh at the forefront of their minds? Do you think that's a good thing?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yeah, they've been they've included on all secondary school uh curriculums, CPR, um not particularly defibrillation, but CPR. In fact, one of the things I'm doing, I've been I've submitted a petition to Parliament around the um the need to make sure that all ADs are registered on the British Heart Foundation circuit. Now that's the database that all UK Armate Services use. So if you ring up in 999, say someone's had a heart cardiac arrest, they'll tell you where the newest defibrillator is. Now, one of the problems is when people buy defibrillators, they don't always register it in the database. So though there's something like five to seven thousand defibrillators in Scotland, there's a hell of a lot more that aren't uh registered, so you might not be getting the latest information. Uh and the other thing that people do with all good intentions But how do you register it then?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Do you register it with the central body?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

You can do online, the British Heart Foundation, the circuit database. And the other problem is people with all good intentions who buy a defibrillator, and as I said before, the defibrillator will ver um visually and orderly tell you if there's a f a problem, they don't bother and check it. So they might go on the wall of the cabinet for months and then not even notice that there's an issue.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, it's like a fire alarm in a building you'd regularly do a test every week to make sure it works.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah, so the second part of my my my petition is to look for the Scottish Government to look at legislation. One, so the people register them, and two, they regularly maintain them because there's uh legislation around firefighting equipment, but there's only 30 to 40 deaths a year from fires. There's 3,800 deaths in Scotland a year from cardiac arrest. So to me, there's a bit of a illogical approach there. So I've been speaking to Keith Bryan, the local MSP, he's very supportive, and I say I've submitted this petition to Scottish Parliament, so I'm just waiting for feedback to see whether it's what's going to happen with it.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Right, okay, good.

Training, Mapping And What Next

SPEAKER_00 14:14

So actually, that the last topic you just talked about, what would a typical package look like from DFIB for life in terms of product service training?

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Well, we can offer the whole range, as I mentioned. Generally, when people look to buy a defibrillator, if it's say for an internal um building like this, for example, you'd have our you'd have the defibrillator, which comes with the a set of pads and the battery, you'd have a probably in a carrying case, and it'll sit on a wall bracket or within a cabinet, and everybody would know that it's there and what it's for. Um we provide two types of training. One is I sometimes do an awareness training. So if someone buys a defibrillator, I'll come along do an hour awareness training just to go through the product and let them see how simple it is to use and do a bit of CPR. We um we also offer an annual maintenance contract that we could we'll come along, clean the device, check the pads, check the battery, make sure everything's working fine. So that's an optional thing that we can do as well. And we also do some longer training courses around things like the unconscious patient, how to use a defibrillator, how to do CPR. So we've got a whole range of different uh packages that we can offer customers depending on their requirements.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Right, okay. Um you just just kind of thought of something. We were talking kind of earlier around obviously most most of the cardiac cardiac arrests are happening in the home as opposed out in the community. There's little we could probably do with, you know, the kind of point about the kind of pieces in in the home, but around the community, uh the bid are launching something called the Digital Town Hub. It's an app for Sterling, so it's for Sterling as opposed to you know Platman and Show, the wider Fourth Valley. But it's maybe uh something that can be used as a point of reference to show where all the different relators are across across Stirling, for example. So it's another vehicle, it's going to be the interface for all businesses to interact and all you know um residents and what have you to interact with Sterling on to see if there are events happening and you know where I need to go, you know, for this or to go for that. Maybe is there a vehicle there to get the message out and and and the network of defibrillation across across Sterling in particular.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah, there is a I think called defib finder, which is a mapping of all the defibrillators in a certain postcode. But it's only as good as the data that's in there, of course. I'm sure there are a number of devices that aren't shown in that.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

But it's maybe I'm thinking a bit more of a of a vehicle to to market defibrillation across Sterling.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah, I think anything that backs that up and can help, you know, raise awareness has got to be a good thing. And I think there are many, many defibrillators out there that are in the community. You'll see them on the wall of the church or the town hall or the community hall. Business wise, we don't have so many in the business premises. And I think there's an opportunity there for that type of approach.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah. Right, okay. So I think you've answered this question anyway. I was gonna ask you, do you need to be proficient in first aid, but in general, so you don't need to be a trained first aider to use a defibrillator.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

No, there's there's no training required to use a uh uh defibrillator because it tells you what to do, and you can't make a mistake. So there's no requirement for it.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

I just imagine it's like a bit of a YouTube clipper just kind of explaining exactly how you do this, do that, do this, do the other.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, as soon as you switch it on, it'll say it will tell you what exactly what to do, make sure 999's called, yeah, um, etc. etcetera. So you you know you just have to follow those voice prompts. It's very, very simple.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

So um so Steve, if coming to the kind of end of our conversation here, so if you had a magic wand that you could wave, what and and what where would you like to see the world um in in years to come from a defibrillation point of view? What would utopia look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah. I think as I said before, it's cr it's getting involved in the 75 to 80 percent of people that die or have a cardiac arrest in the home and and how we we tackle that. Um but you know, the more defibrillators are out there, the more potential there is to save life. And and in addition to that, you know, I would like to see more people trained in basic CPR because it's something like 40%, it's not a a huge amount of people, really. So the more that people would go for first aid training, including CPR, and see a demo of a defibrillator and see how easy it is to use, that would be that would be great.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

And I think it's and you maybe have less of the people just walking past the incident when see it.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yeah, or not doing anything, absolutely because they're scared effectively, actually. Yeah, and it's understandable because it is a fact. I can remember being a paramedic, it's very stressful on as a professional. So you can imagine the stress on a bystander or someone who's never dealt with a a cardiac arrest before, especially if it's a friend or a member of the family. It can be very very, very stressful.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Yeah. Okay, well, thank you for coming in. Very informative topic. And uh, you know, hopefully this will be an opportunity to get the get the voice kind of heard and get the kind of message, you know, out uh broader and kind of wider across the Stirlingshire area, but the Fourth Valley. I think we've got listeners from across uh, you know, all all parts of the Fourth Valley. Um and yeah, we'll continue to you know fly fly the flag for it and you know hopefully we'll you know we'll get some interest from the podcast and uh you know and some follow-up discussion. Okay, great.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

My pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Thanks so much for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Thank you.

Final Thanks And Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 19:49

So that brings us to another end of an episode of the Sterling Business Podcast. Thank you again to our guests this week. Remember to follow us on the YouTube channel, on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Until next time, stay safe.