Health: Cardiac Arrest

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve outcomes in cases of sudden cardiac arrest.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease are a priority for the Government. We want people to have the best chance of survival from cardiac arrest and rapid intervention is critical to improving outcomes. This is why the Government have agreed to provide funding of £1 million to design a grant scheme for the expansion of AEDs that increases the number of public access defibrillators.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I declare that my son is a consultant cardiologist. Around 80,000 cardiac arrests happen each year out of hospital, mostly in the home. Learning from countries such as Norway and Denmark—where survival rates are more than double ours, which is below 10%—will the Government extend cardiac first aid training to primary schools, to part of the driver’s licence, to all public sector workers and to those attending jobcentres? Will defibrillators be carried on every first response police and fire vehicle, with the NHS defibrillator purchasing scheme and registration extended to public places, to greatly increase 24-hour bystander public access to a working defibrillator via 999, with those who attempt CPR signposted to support afterwards?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I believe this is the noble Baroness’s 1,000th contribution to your Lordships’ House, so I congratulate her—that is some feat. She asked a very good, topical question. All state-funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the mandatory relationships, sex and health education curriculum. This involves children aged over 12 being taught CPR and how to use a defibrillator.

To improve survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases, the NHS long-term plan sets out that a national network of community first responders and automated external defibrillators will help save up to 4,000 lives each year by 2028. NHS England are working with St John Ambulance to increase the awareness of the importance of CPR in England. Learning from other countries, as the noble Baroness said, is exactly right and it is very important that the NHS does learn from other countries to continually improve. With regard to first responder vehicles, including in the police and fire service, carrying defibrillators, it is a very good question and I will take this back to my colleagues in the Home Office.