Health: Cardiology

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. Again, as the CVD outcomes strategy sets out, basic life-support skills could be more widely taught as part of volunteering programmes; for example, in schools and the workplace. I am aware that bystander CPR doubles survival rates yet is attempted in only 20% to 30% of cases. There is scope for all emergency service personnel to be trained in CPR, and for basic life-support skills to be taught more widely.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

Are departmental advisers working with the new chief coroner, whose appointment has been widely welcomed, to ensure that there are minimum standards at post-mortem, so that when a young person has had a sudden cardiac death the risk to other family members can be appropriately identified? It is important that specimens from the heart of a deceased young person are not lost because the post-mortem has not been done to a high enough standard.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. My department supported the formation of the UK Cardiac Pathology Network in 2006 to provide local coroners with an expert cardiac pathology service and to promote best pathological practice in sudden death cases. A national database on sudden arrhythmic death was launched in November 2008, allowing pathologists to record information on cases referred to them. In the longer term this could be very helpful in building a deeper understanding of the problem.