BY the end of the year, intu Merry Hill hopes to have shown more than 2,500 people how to operate defibrillators.

Ten members of staff at the Brierley Hill shopping centre have volunteered to support community first responders FastAid Black Country by becoming official defibrillator instructors.

Since completing their training, they have educated 1,800 individuals and the team do not plan to stop there and have vowed to train at least another 700 people to use the lifesaving equipment by the end of 2018.

The latest training session took place at Redhill School in Stourbridge, where 300 pupils were taught how to use the defibrillator donated to the school by the shopping centre.

Naomi Campbell, the centre's community development manager, said: “This project will help put power into the hands of the local community, enabling them to help other people."

Paul Grove, chairman of FastAid Black Country, added: “In partnership with West Midlands Ambulance Service, we aim to provide access to defibrillators to a population of more than two million people across the Black Country and Birmingham, which is why support from a place like intu Merry Hill is vital in helping us carrying out our work.

“We’re a relatively small team but we train between 30 - 40 people a month at a nationally recognised level in how to deliver basic life support and defibrillation.”

Defibrillators are the only treatment for sudden cardiac arrest and immediate treatment can increase a patient’s survival by up to 70 per cent if used within the first three minutes.

It costs the charity approximately £2,000 to install each one.