St. John Ambulance has secured additional insurance cover giving members the confidence to use life-saving equipment on heart attack victims.
Anyone who has trained to use Automated External Defibrillators (AED's)with St. John Ambulance is now covered to use the equipment where needed, even if they are not the official first aider.
Chief commander Baroness Emerton said: "AED's help to increase survival rates considerably. This new cover means that in an increasingly litigious society more and more people will feel able to use them."
The new cover follows a joint initiative with the government in 2001 to improve survival rates of heart attack casualties by installing defibrillators in public places.
