One Button, One Device For 999 Calls
Many communities have used their telephone kiosks for defibrillators. This means the telephone has been removed, but not everyone has a mobile telephone or a reliable signal with which to use one.
The Community Heartbeat Trust (CHT) is able to restore a 999 telephone to the kiosks (The only organisation granted permission by BT) or provide a unit anywhere in the village with access to a phone line or as a GSM (Mobile) model where no phone line is present as part of your community resilience program to support your community defibrillator.
The GSM Phone will connect to any network that provides a signal and CHT can provide a test mobile to check your location to see if such a solution is viable before installation.
Landline 999 Phones are also available to areas without signal as part of a project started with BT in Loweswater, where the 3000th adopted kiosk was outfitted with a defibrillator and a Landline Emergency Phone. BT has set aside a fund to provide lines for phones in areas where kiosks have been adopted, but a mobile GSM Phone is not a viable solution and the telephone has been removed. The hardware is available via CHT.
Both units can be placed in any location and landline phones can be installed anywhere with an already available line and in some cases such as the village of Onecote is installed independently of a defibrillator scheme and attached to the village hall wall, which operates as an emergency phone line for the community to use to contact Police, Ambulance or Fire Services as the mobile signal is an issue within the village.
More information on the BT fund and information about emergency phones is available from Community Heartbeat upon request.