Communities in the Highlands and islands are being encouraged to form voluntary emergency teams to help improve the chances of victims of heart attacks in the area.
The latest statistics show that those suffering one in a sparse, rural areas are a third less likely to survive.
The plea for community action came yesterday from Martin Fagan, who is spearheading a UK-wide campaign to promote the deployment and use of ‘easy access’ defibrillators.
Mr Fagan is in Caithness this week hosting a series of meetings organised by Thurso’s Riverbank Practice Patient Participation Group.
The group is seeking to identify where the automated external defibrillators (AED) are in Caithness and to promote the provision of new ones.
Mr Fagan, the national secretary of the Community Heartbeat Trust (CHT), reckons there are about 20,000 of the machines in the UK available to the public, with a similar number in private hands.
Making more of the latter available to the public and providing new ones is essential to properly covering the country.
But he said, it is as important to ensure the machines are registered on the national database and that they are properly maintained and operated.
He said: “We are looking for communities to form teams that ensure that projects are sustainable and that the machines are properly looked after.
“There’s no point putting a defibrillator in and just forgetting about it.”
Machines have been installed in redundant telephone kiosks and outside village halls, sports centres, shops, restaurants and offices.
Since the launch of the Thurso group’s campaign in April, the number of AED sites registered has grown from four to 39.
Spokesman Billy Mitchell said: “There are others which we are in the process of registering. Since we started our campaign, there’s been a lot of interest and the meetings we’re having this week have all been well attended.”