Young Carers

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Dying Matters. Do the Government accept the figure that approximately 10% of schoolchildren are bereaved, a third of those of a parent or sibling, and that many of them have cared for that person during their final illness and, after death, often provide care and support for the other bereaved members of the family? Will the whole House join me in expressing the most sincere condolences to the two children who were bereaved because their mother was killed yesterday on Westminster Bridge?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness on child bereavement. I suffered from that myself and share the sympathy that she expresses.

Schools: Access to Defibrillators

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We leave it to schools to decide precisely how much they teach their pupils about first aid. Some very good resources are available from the British Heart Foundation, the Red Cross and others. The defibrillator we provide comes with audio instructions which make it very easy to use, but of course, training for staff and others is important.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Do the Government recognise that it is essential to have emergency action first-aid training in primary and secondary schools, so that children can recognise cardiac arrest in another child, respond appropriately, call for help and know where a defibrillator is? Simply purchasing a defibrillator is inadequate.

[Lord Nash]

As I say, we leave it to schools to deal with the precise details, but they will of course make it absolutely clear where the defibrillator is. I have already referred to the issue of training.

Schools: Health and Well-being

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Monday 15th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We certainly do target certain types of food in schools, such as crisps, as being unhealthy. That is what the school food standards are all about. As for taxing sugar et cetera, that, I am afraid, is rather out of my ken.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

What are the Government doing about vitamin deficiency among children, given that the CMO’s report recommended the Healthy Start vitamin programme and that 40% of young children are thought to be vitamin D deficient, particularly as the deficiency may be linked to the metabolic syndrome and high blood pressure? It has even been suggested that a vitamin D supplement may improve some of the core symptoms of autism, which can create major behavioural issues in a classroom.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness raises an extremely important point. I shall discuss this issue with the Department of Health and ensure that she receives a full written reply.

Schools: Emergency Life Support Skills

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

Monday 3rd February 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the ability to save a life is one of the most important skills that a young person can learn, and many young people take part in activities on emergency life support skills in schools. For example, in 2012, St John Ambulance provided support resources for the direct teaching of first aid to more than 500,000 young people in schools. It is for schools to decide whether, how and when pupils should learn emergency life support skills. The Government do not collect data on school provision in this area.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Given that 60,000 people a year have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and yet three-quarters of our population are not trained to give basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation, does the Minister recognise that this is a problem? It is devastating for anyone, particularly a child, to see someone have a cardiac arrest in front of them and not know what to do. We know that immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation will triple the chance of survival. Life-saving skills really should be mandatory in schools, as they are in other European schools. I ask the Minister to reconsider. Has the current consultation over key stage 4 curriculum content in English, maths and science considered including heart function, cardiac arrest and CPR as part of science teaching?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right to draw attention to this very important point. Emergency life-saving skills are extremely important. In addition to the St John Ambulance provision, the Red Cross and the British Heart Foundation run excellent schemes. The BHF’s Heartstart scheme has to date trained more than 3.5 million people.

The answer to her curriculum question is that I do not believe we are intending to put this in, but I will investigate that and write to her about it. With regard to particular incidents in schools, we are looking at that in the context of defibrillators to see if there is anything more that we can do.