In 2013

JHMT joined forces with Leicester City Council to help create a heart safe community. This has since resulted in the council installing 31 x defibrillators located in 23 city parks and open spaces, as part of Leicester City Council's Heart Friendly Parks initiative. JHMT deliver lifesaving CPR and AED familiarisation sessions for parks users, staff and local residents across the community.

In 2014

JHMT helped create a collaboration to promote AED provision and "hands-on" CPR training to all secondary schools in Leicester and Leicestershire. This group is now known as "Heartwize" and aims to ensure that a quality assured programme of CPR training is maintained in all Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Secondary Schools –resulting in 93 AEDs donated to city and county secondary schools and 20,000 so far trained in key lifesaving skills.

In 2016

JHMT joined up with Leicestershire County Cricket Club and the Leicestershire Cricket League to develop the Heart Awareness Cricket Scheme to help create a heart safe cricket environment at all levels of the game.Leicestershire County Cricket Club now have seven AEDs located around the Fischer County Ground, Grace Road. The new equipment will allow quicker access around the ground as well as allowing the public 24 hours access to the one situated at the main entrance on Curzon Road. The HAC partnership has helped drive the initiative into local cricket clubs. The Heart Awareness in Cricket programme's on-going work aims to provide all premier league clubs and clubs across other leagues with dedicated support, advice, guidance around accessing funding to secure a defibrillator, external cabinet and in providing training to the clubs volunteer network.

2017 – 2021

The JHMT was also instrumental in ensuring cardiac safety in sport was included within the independent "Duty of Care in Sport" review which was led by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and published in April 2017. The report advocates more training and better awareness of cardiac health at all sporting levels to help protect all people of all ages who play sport, and the importance of preventing deaths from SADS.

The follow on from the report resulted in JHMT working closely with Sport England and Sheffield Hallam University's Academy of Sport and Physical Activity (supported by BHF) to develop new guidance on Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) and the use of AEDs. The guide is designed to help raise awareness across the sport and leisure sectors about what defibrillators are, how they are used and the practical measures to consider in the event of needing to deal with a possible SCA.

To view the guide, go to: https://www.sportenglandclubmatters.com/infographics/

Between 2019 to May 2021 period, attention turned to creating a new digital learning resource - https://www.ukcoaching.org/sca for sports coaches at all levels led UK Coaching, funded by Sport England and developed in collaboration with The Joe Humphries Memorial Trust (JHMT), UK Resuscitation Council, and St John Ambulance.

2022/2024 Collaboration with Leicester City Public Health and EMAS - HeartShield City Project

In the UK, there are more than 30,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests which take place each year, fewer than 1 in 10 people survive. Immediate CPR and defibrillation can increase the chances of survival to over 50%.

As a result, JHMT is working in collaboration with both East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) and Leicester Public Heath to:

  • To analyse the distribution of Automated External Defibrillators (AED) in the city communities and understand how to overcome any gaps in coverage to increase accessibility.
  • To raise confidence in life saving and AED use through an education programme in the community delivered by the partnership and other identified agencies.

This follows on from the Inequalities in AEDs research report released by European Resuscitation Council – November 21