Life-saving training aid produced in four more languages to help save lives in Yorkshire

Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust launched the Pillow Partner last year as a simple, effective and inexpensive way of learning how to save the life of someone in cardiac arrest.

Now the Pillow Partner - pillowcases printed with a torso that you can slip on your own pillow - has been re-printed with basic CPR instructions in English on one side and Urdu, Punjabi, Polish and Arabic on the other so even more people can learn the vital skill.

The project is supported by the Yorkshire Ambulance Service Charity which has also funded the translation of other life-saving training material in Chinese, Gujarati, Kurdish and Slovak, as well as Urdu, Punjabi, Polish and Arabic. These include posters about how to perform CPR and use defibrillators, as well as subtitled tutorial videos, and can be accessed here.

Jason Carlyon, Community Engagement Manager with Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said: “We have distributed 20,000 Pillow Partners since they were launched last year which is amazing, with recent significant orders from the Resuscitation Council (UK) for the British Islamic Medical Association and British Sikh Nurses; St John Ambulance and South Western Ambulance Service.

“The training aid is a really simple and inexpensive way of practising CPR. Now we have developed the multi-lingual version in the top four most widely spoken languages in Yorkshire, other than English, alongside a host of other translated material, even more people will be able to learn this crucial skill.

“By removing the barriers of cost, availability and language associated with the traditional training manikins, we aim to make CPR training more accessible and improve cardiac arrest survival rates.”

There is a suggested donation of £2 per Pillow Partner to help recover some of the costs of producing the training aid, and to cover administration and postage.

Any surplus monies raised will be used by Yorkshire Ambulance Service Charity which enhances the work of Yorkshire Ambulance Service by providing life-saving first aid training and public access defibrillators to communities.

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