Training thousands in life-saving CPR skills

As the UK marks Restart a Heart Day on 16 October 2025, we are drawing urgent attention to the UK’s persistently low survival rates from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), with fewer than three in ten people feeling confident to step in during an emergency (1).

Survival rates for OHCA in the UK have remained stuck at around 10% for more than a decade (2), despite affecting over 40,000 people every year (3). With three-quarters of cardiac arrests happening at home, early Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation can more than double survival chances, but there are too few people currently trained and confident to perform it.

We are tackling these issues by making a total of £1.94 million in grants to all 14 NHS ambulance charities in the UK, to help communities respond in an emergency and ease pressure on frontline services. The aim of the funding is to train a minimum of 24,000 people in CPR, support thousands of life-saving Community First Responder (CFR) volunteers and deploy up to 6,000 units of vital equipment, including defibrillators and community response vehicles.

The fund will focus on areas with lower survival rates and limited access to defibrillators. Projects funded include the expansion of a CPR training programme in schools in Scotland, the piloting of an innovative video call CPR assistance scheme in the East of England, and provision of more Community Response Vehicles in the South West to help CFRs attend to emergencies faster.

Ted Tracey, 81, from Barrow near Bury St Edmunds, said:

“I’m living proof that volunteer Community First Responders and CPR training save lives. I am forever grateful to still be here today with my family and friends - all thanks to a trained volunteer responder, Gary, who was in the right place at the right time. He was able to give me the vital CPR that restarted my heart after I collapsed and went into cardiac arrest following a morning rowing session.

“I was rushed to the world-class care of NHS Papworth Hospital, where I was placed in an induced coma - and against all odds, I have made a miraculous recovery.”

Zoe Larter, Head of Charity at South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, said:

“We know that supporting volunteer first responders and local communities to act fast in a medical emergency can help saves lives, while also easing pressure on a busy ambulance service. Thanks to funding from NHS Charities Together, we’ve been able to provide volunteer and community training, enhanced equipment, and community response cars – helping to reduce ambulance callouts across the region by 14%, when a community response car is first on scene. We are now building on this progress, to help provide better patient care across the South West.”

We are delivering the funding in partnership with Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) and NHS ambulance charities thanks to a generous donation from Omaze.

As well as funding, in partnership with AACE we continue to implement, in collaboration with charities, trusts and voluntary sector organisations, the recommendations from our jointly commissioned report into health inequalities in relation to OHCA. One of these recommendations was around the national roll out of CPR training as part of the UK driving license requirement – something that was announced by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency earlier this year with questions around defibrillators and CPR being added to driving theory tests from early 2026.

(1) Data taken from a YouGov survey commissioned by NHS Charities Together in November 2023. 2100 adults in the UK took part and answered a range of questions. Key findings include: fewer than three in 10 people in the UK would be confident in knowing how to do CPR in an emergency (28%)

(2) Data taken from Resuscitation Council UK - Epidemiology of cardiac arrest Guidelines

(3) British Heart Foundation September 2025 fact sheet