In-hospital ‘Cardiac Arrest Call’ number — 2222

The European Resuscitation Council, the European Board of Anaesthesiology and the European Society of Anaesthesiology have issued a joint statement calling upon European hospitals all to use the same internal telephone number (2222) to summon help when one of their patients has a cardiac arrest.

A recent survey has shown that 76% of European hospitals use a telephone to call the resuscitation team but at least 105 different numbers are used, ranging from 19 to 25445. The commonest number reported to be used is 2222.

If nursing and medical staff do not instinctively know the emergency number it delays the arrival of resuscitation teams. Miscommunication involving the cardiac arrest number has been shown to occur in almost 1 in 10 patient safety incidents at cardiac arrests.

The Chairman of the European Resuscitation Council, Professor Maaret Castren from Helsinki, has said "standardising the European cardiac arrest call number is an important patient safety issue because an increasing number of nursing and medical staff move between hospitals as well as around Europe. The great variety of numbers can lead to delays in summoning assistance."

Professional groups are now working to standardise the telephone number used to summon the resuscitation teams throughout all hospitals in Europe.