A BT phone kiosk in Crossgar, County Down has become the first in Northern Ireland to be transformed into a potential life saver - thanks to an initiative by BT, the British Red Cross, Down District Council and the local community.

BT is installing an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), which can diagnose and treat life threatening cardiac arrhythmias which lead to cardiac arrest, in one of the BT phone boxes situated at the junction of Station Road and Downpatrick Street Crossgar.  It is the first BT Payphone in Northern Ireland to be fitted with the lifesaving equipment.  

Available to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the defibrillator is housed in the kiosk in a high-visibility, green, vandal-resistant, heated cabinet. It can be opened under instruction from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service by calling 999.

The original idea of using a BT phone box to house a defibrillator came from a collaboration between the Queen’s University Medical Faculty, Dr. Nigel Hart from the local Crossgar GP surgery and the British Red Cross. Two medical students from Queen’s also conducted a community research project to establish local appetite for the project. The local community raised £4,000 to fund it and around 100 local residents and business people took part in community first aid courses organised by the Red Cross.

The kiosk was originally bought by Down District Council for £1 as part of BT’s Adopt a Kiosk scheme as it was no longer needed as a working payphone in the area.

Dr Nigel Hart said: “Apart from benefiting our own local community we have a lot of visitors to the village.  A defibrillator in the centre of the town will be a real asset and could help save lives in the future.”

Paula Powell, Community Based First Aid Manager for the Red Cross, said: “We would encourage other towns and villages in Northern Ireland to think about their own resilience. They may already have defibrillators in the community, but do enough people know how to access and use them? This is an innovative way to enable 24/7 access to an AED and most importantly of all, to have the local community fully involved and first aid trained.”

Down District Council Chairperson, Cllr Mickey Coogan said: “Down District Council is delighted to support BT’s Adopt a Kiosk scheme.  I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to BT and everyone else whose work has resulted in this fantastic new use for the former phone box. I am very pleased that Crossgar’s kiosk is the first in the region to be adopted and I know the residents are most appreciative.”

Up to 200,000 people a year in the UK suffer from a sudden heart attack, making it one of the UK’s largest killers. The faster a victim gets medical help, the better the chances of survival. The availability of a defibrillator greatly increases the chances of surviving an attack. With CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) alone, the survival rate is around five per cent, but defibrillation and CPR increases the chance to up to 50 per cent.

BT’s Adopt a Kiosk scheme has captured the imagination of many people since it was introduced in 2008. Apart from the defibrillator kiosks, boxes in GB have been turned into art galleries, public libraries, exhibitions and information centres, and even the villagers of Ambridge in BBC Radio 4’s long-running drama, The Archers, have adopted their kiosk   

Conal Duffy, BT’s Consumer director in Northern Ireland, said: “The most fantastic thing about setting up the Adopt a Kiosk scheme in Northern Ireland is how easy it is for communities to get involved and it’s gratifying to see rarely used boxes given a new lease of life.

“Over the years, many people have said that their local phone box was a lifeline. Now that most people have access to a phone at home or a mobile that’s no longer true, but a kiosk fitted with defibrillator is a genuine asset to a community and could be real life savers in the future.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

Payphone facts and figures

• Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed the first incarnation of the world famous red phone box for a competition in 1924. This design, the K2, was introduced in 1926, predominately in London.  In 1936, Scott refined his design for the famous K6 introduced nationwide to celebrate George V's Silver Jubilee. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott also designed Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, and Battersea and Bankside (now Tate Modern) Power Stations in London.

• The K2 kiosk is 9'3" tall (2.7 metres) and weighs in at one and a quarter tons (1,270 kilograms). New they cost £35.14s.0d each.• The K6 kiosk is 8’3” (2.4 metres) and weighs in at three quarters of a ton (762 kilograms).

• At their peak in 2002, there were 92,000 payphones across the UK, now there are 51,000 public payphones (including 10,000 red boxes) on the street and 11,000 payphones on private sites like railway stations, airports and shopping centres.

• 100,000 calls are made each day from public payphones; just three per cent of adults used a payphone in the last month. The number of calls made is falling by 25 per cent each year and 72 per cent of phone boxes lose money.

• Successful new ideas, which have helped phone boxes pay their way, include advertising on 20,000 modern kiosks and combining Wi-Fi and cash machine services with both modern and traditional red phone boxes.

Enquiries about this news release should be made to:Patricia Donnelly: PR Manager: BT: Tel: 02890 214174: Mob: +447713332974E: patricia.donnelly@bt.com

• For more information about Adopt a Kiosk, including a kiosk checker and application forms, visit the BT Payphones web site at: http://www.payphones.bt.com.• For examples of adopted kiosks see:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmOs8M3Im3k and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUKwN-mnN1s.• When BT wants to remove a phone box it follows rules set by Ofcom. For more information see:http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/uso/statement/callboxdirection.pdf• BT has a duty, known as the Universal Service Obligation (USO), to provide a reasonable number of working phone boxes where they are most needed. For more information visit: www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/uso/uso_statement.

About the British Red CrossThe British Red Cross helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. We are part of a global voluntary network, responding to conflicts, natural disasters and individual emergencies.We enable vulnerable people in the UK and abroad to prepare for and withstand emergencies in their own communities. And when the crisis is over, we help them to recover and move on with their lives.www.redcross.org.uk

About BTBT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries.  Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services.  BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach.In the year ended 31 March 2012, BT Group’s revenue was £18,897m with profit before taxation of £2,445m.British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group.  BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. For more information, visit www.btplc.com