Chichester junior doctors use strike day to teach CPR

The staff from St Richard’s hospital spent their afternoon demonstrating how to do chest pumps on dummies as part of the action organised by the BMA.

Around 30 medical professionals took part, accompanied by two mannequins, which the public were encouraged to try giving chest compressions.

Anesthetics trainee Anna Roberts, 31. said: “We’re here trying to teach people what to do if somebody drops on the street and how to save someone’s life.

“A lot of people have seen it on TV but they aren’t exactly sure how to do it. It can really make the difference between saving someone and bringing them back or not.”

The team stressed that patient safety was a priority, and that emergency care was available during the strike from their consultant collegues.

Participants included 18-year-old student Khari Bedward, who said it was ‘pretty cool’.

Chest compressions keep blood flowing to the heart when someone is in cardiac arrest and help push some oxygen into the lungs.

Mouth-to-mouth is no longer recommended as a form of CPR as studies have shown it is less effective than maintaining continuous chest pumps.

The strikes are in response to proposed changes to junior doctors contracts that re-defines ‘out-of-hours’ work at weekends.