Automated External Defibrillators: Public Access

Alex Norris Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee on granting it. He made a typically thoughtful case, as he did earlier in the week when we spoke about smoking cessation in this Chamber. I plan to borrow liberally from him today, as I did then, because I know he does not mind.

The hon. Member spoke about the wide cross-section of support for action in this area. Clearly, we are a very visible demonstration of that politically, in terms of the number of people who have been able to attend on a Thursday afternoon and the parties that we represent, because the debate is so important. He also detailed a long list of organisations in civil society that have come together for action. I know that they will be watching. I hope that they get a sense from the debate of how seriously Parliament takes the issue, and how clear the commitment is for action.

The hon. Member and other colleagues raised the case of Christian Eriksen, which was a very visible demonstration of cardiac arrest, and how it can affect individuals with very little notice. It was a dreadful thing. Like the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), I watched it with incredible sadness and fear. It was an awful thing to happen to anybody, but it happened in the best place possible—a place that had lots of kit and medical expertise. I think back to all the football that we played this Saturday and Sunday up and down the country in rural communities that do not have the same infrastructure as a major football stadium. We are here today with that risk in mind.

Other colleagues made excellent contributions. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) made a point on schools. We talk a lot about personal and social education in this place. CPR, water safety and railway safety should be core parts of the curriculum, because some of our young people will need those skills, and they could save a life. That would be a valuable part of their education. The hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) made a point on having great kit out there but not knowing where it is. I will expand on that shortly. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) made points about inequalities—something that is close to my heart. I am conscious that as challenging as some of the outcomes that we have heard about are, they are worse in poorer communities such as mine. That calls us to act.

The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) raised the terrible case of Sam Benson, which I was not aware of. It was exceptionally saddening to hear about. I associate myself with all the remarks that he made. Sam’s colleagues clearly made incredible efforts. Sadly, they were in vain, but her colleagues will at least take comfort that they behaved wonderfully in that situation. Perhaps we need to do more to ensure that others in similar situations will have access to the right kit as soon as possible. As he said, time can have a really significant impact on outcomes.

I know that the debate is a joint enterprise between the hon. Member for Strangford and the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), who made a point about St James’s Park. I married into a family of Newcastle season ticket holders, and that case was very visible. Again, it was perhaps the right place for such a thing to happen because of those who were around, although we would never wish for it to happen to anybody. The point that the hon. Member for Sedgefield made about the 300 school children was sobering. Again, that shows why public buildings such as schools would be very good for this sort of thing.

Heart and circulatory diseases account for one death every three minutes in the UK. We know that many cardiac arrests take place in hospital settings, but more than 30,000 take place outside of them and the survival rate for those is less than one in 10. In parts of the country, including the east midlands, the rate is lower. It has a range of causes, but whatever happens there is disruption to electrical activity in the heart, meaning that it is not pumping blood to the brain, lungs and other organs. That can lead to unconsciousness and, if left untreated, death, but advances in medical technology have given us the crucial tool of automated external defibrillators.

AEDs offer a lifeline to those suffering cardiac arrest because they provide an electric shock to the heart to restore normal rhythm. As colleagues said—I do not think that we can say this enough, because we need it to be understood more widely—they are very safe to use. They are portable and easy, they have clear instructions, and they cannot allow the user to give an accidental shock and hurt somebody, which I thought the hon. Member for Sedgefield made very clear. We cannot say that enough—I hope the people watching will get that picture. The statistics bear out how effective they are. If a defibrillator is attached to a patient by a non-medical first responder, the average survival rate is 40%. Other research puts the figure even higher. Every day, people doing extraordinary actions can be very effective indeed.

At the moment, only one in 10 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests involves a public access defibrillator. The British Heart Foundation say that our nation’s low cardiac arrest survival rate is likely to be partly attributable to that lack of access. For this lifesaving technology to work, people must be able to access it. There are two elements to that. First, AEDs have to be there. The Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Strangford is a really good way to do that. Secondly and no less crucially, we need to know where the AEDs are, whether that is us as bystanders or the emergency services. It is estimated that there are 100,000 AEDs in the UK, but only 30,000 are known to ambulance services. That is a big gap in our response. As hon. Members have said, when a person suffers cardiac arrest, it is a race against the clock. A person’s chance of survival decreases around 10% with every minute that passes.

Progress has been made, which we should say with some pride and with optimism for the future. I pay tribute to the British Heart Foundation, SADS UK, the Oliver King Foundation and others who campaign and have campaigned tirelessly over the years to improve the provision of AEDs and to provide training on how to use them. I also pay tribute to all those businesses and engaged citizens across the country who have done sponsored runs or bake sales, or put some of their business’s own money into making AEDs available. It very much shows the best of Britain and a community response—a truly selfless act. With them having done all that, we can meet that ambition in this place to push things a little bit further.

We know it can work. Colleagues have used various different international examples—I will use one of my own. Across the North sea, in the Netherlands, they created a national network of available AEDs and a system to alert trained citizens to cardiac arrests. When it comes to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, the Netherlands has the highest survival rate in Europe, which points us in the right direction. The hon. Member for Strangford has himself pointed us in the right direction with his Bill.

We know about the vagaries of trying to get business proceeded with on Fridays—we may well see that again tomorrow. Whether or not the Bill can progress, we have the Health and Care Bill in the House at the moment, with its Commons remaining stages on Monday and Tuesday next week, I believe, and with Lords stages to come too. If the Government were minded to pick up the sentiment and theme of what the hon. Gentleman has set out, although I cannot speak for him I suggest he would be quite enthusiastic about that, and the Opposition would certainly be very supportive of it. I believe there would be widespread support across the House. There is clearly cross-party support for the common goal of an active network of AEDs, with citizens knowledgeable about their location and able to use them. We will support the Government in any measure they bring forward to make that a reality.