A consultant at the Royal United Hospital is turning phones into lifesavers.

Anaesthetist Dr Daniel Low has designed an application for the iPhone which guides the user through the process of resuscitating people in cardiac arrest.

The iResus, is the result of a collaboration with the Resuscitation Council – which produces resuscitation guidelines for health care professionals and first aiders.

It acts like a checklist, with medically-trained users following prompts to take them through the process, and remind them of what to do next.

A more basic version can also be downloaded and used by people with first aid training.

Almost 2,500 people downloaded the application in the first week, and since then it has been downloaded by 1,200 people a week.

Dr Low was inspired to create the application when he worked alongside air ambulance helicopter pilots, and saw that they referred to instruction cards to guide them through a crisis.

He realised that a similar system could assist medics when they are faced with a cardiac arrest and reduce the risk of human error.

Dr Low said: "Even though doctors and nurses are trained to deal with someone having a cardiac arrest, it's not a situation they will face every day and I thought both medics and patients would benefit from an application such as this."

It took Dr Low, who joined the RUH in April last year, eight months to develop iResus with a business partner, an expert in computer software design.

He believes other medical conditions could also benefit from applications of this type.

Dr Low said: "We have already had inquiries from specialists in fields such as stroke, asthma and anaphylaxis and we are keen to work with other professional bodies to see if we can adapt iResus to distribute their guidelines onto the iPhones of their members."

RUH anaesthetist Dr Jerry Nolan, who is a former chairman of the Resuscitation Council, thinks it is an invaluable tool.

He said: "Lots of people now have smart phones of one kind or another and to be able to have a device like this, which is constantly updated, accessible within seconds and which automatically replaces old guidelines with new, is fantastic.

"Daniel's work with the Resuscitation Council shows how medicine and patient care is embracing day-to-day technology to maximum effect."