Essex has just finished the first full year of structured cardiac arrest bystander support in England. Dr Uzma Sajjad is back on the podcast with the results.
In 2022, we ran a survey called The Forgotten Patient. It asked the people who did CPR, made the 999 call, or simply stood in the room one question. What support did you get afterwards? The answer, mostly, was nothing.
Three years later, RescQ exists. It is a cardiac arrest bystander support service. The Essex Cardiothoracic Centre runs it with the East of England Ambulance Service. I spoke to its lead, Dr Uzma Sajjad, when it was three months old. The pilot has now finished, the data is in, and this is the conversation I wanted to have.
What cardiac arrest bystander support looks like in Essex
The idea is simple. At the scene, the paramedic gives the co-survivors a short debrief and offers to register them. Within minutes, a link arrives. It leads to a website with videos, coping strategies, and plain answers, some filmed with members of our community. If they want more, they press a button, and Uzma calls them.
What the first year showed
There were 432 eligible cardiac arrests in Essex between April 2025 and April 2026. Just over half resulted in someone being registered onto RescQ, comfortably above the target the team had set. That is around 300 co-survivors reached in a single county in one year. As far as we know, it is the largest cardiac arrest bystander support dataset in the UK.
The paramedics were surveyed too. One of them wrote:
“Such a relief to leave a support resource with the family instead of just condolences.”
So why only half, and not all of them? Uzma has a candid answer. It says a lot about how new ideas do or do not get embedded in an ambulance service.
What we get into
Uzma had planned to hire a liaison officer. In the end she did every personal support session herself, and the conversations were nothing as she expected. Some lasted fifteen minutes. One ran to two and a half hours. There was deliberately no script, and she explains why.
We talk about the questions co-survivors ask again and again. One of them is about broken ribs, and the answer brings relief every time. We talk about the people who saved a life and cannot bear being called a hero. We talk about how the conversation changes when the patient died. We also talk about the stranger who did CPR and will never find out what happened. And we talk about the finding that surprised us both, which I will leave for the episode.
Then there are the gaps the year exposed. One in ten of the co-survivors paramedics met were under 18, and there is nothing for them. A video is missing from the website, and Uzma knows exactly which one. And there is the question that decides whether any of this can scale. Who should provide cardiac arrest bystander support? Does it really need to be a cardiologist?
Finally, she talks with real honesty about what a year of these conversations cost her. A Scottish nurse gave her the phrase.
Why this matters beyond Essex
Since then, Resuscitation Council UK’s 2025 guidelines have told clinicians to consider the wellbeing of lay rescuers and offer them support. That is national policy now. In practice it happens in a handful of places. RescQ is the only one with a year of published data. We have said the same about survivor care in our report on cardiac arrest recovery as the weakest link. We don’t lose sight of the parallel.
At the end I asked Uzma whether “the forgotten patients” is still the right name. Her answer closes the episode.
Carry the conversation on in May
One thing Uzma says helped her co-survivors most was being connected with someone who had been through the same thing. That is exactly what Life Without Limits, our national conference on Saturday 15 May 2027 in Hinckley, is built for. Co-survivors get their own pink lanyard and a room full of people who understand. For paramedics, nurses and cardiac network leads who want to take ideas like RescQ home with them, a dedicated healthcare professional track from midday. Early bird tickets are £67.50 until 15 November, and day-only tickets are £35.
Listen to the episode
RescQ Part 2: Supporting cardiac arrest rescuers, with Dr Uzma Sajjad, is out now on the Life After Cardiac Arrest podcast. It is on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen.
Did you witness a cardiac arrest, do CPR or make the call? You do not need to be in Essex to get help. Our co-survivor support page is the place to start, wherever you are.
Do you work for an ambulance service, a cardiac network or a hospital trust? If you want to know what it would take to bring cardiac arrest bystander support to your area, email [email protected]. We will connect you with the Essex team. Clinicians may also find our guidance on supporting co-survivors in practice useful in the meantime.
After our first meet-up in February 2015, I realised I was not alone. It was the first time since my cardiac arrest the previous year that I had spoken face-to-face with someone who had experienced what I had. This was also true for my wife, who also happened to be my lifesaver. From that meet-up, the idea of SCA UK was born. Since then, we have achieved a considerable amount, primarily providing information, resources and support to others in a similar situation but also raising the profile of survivorship and the need for better post-discharge care. We are starting to get traction in this, and with the formation of the charity, I genuinely believe we have a bright future ahead and will make a significant difference in the lives of many who join our ranks.