First Aid Techniques: National Curriculum

David Amess Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

There is wide interest in the debate. From the Chair’s point of view, it would be helpful if colleagues quietly let the Clerk know who wishes to make a speech and who intends merely to intervene. Aside from the main speakers, it looks as though there will be about five minutes each for the rest.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful for the opportunity to have one last go in this Parliament to persuade the Government and my Front Benchers that there is a chance simply, easily, cheaply and immediately to save lives and to transform society.

Teaching emergency life support skills in schools and the community is

“a no brainer, it’s just common sense”.

Those words are not mine, but those of Dr Andy Lockey at the Resuscitation Council. There are 150,000 people a year who die in situations in which, if only someone had known what to do, their lives might have been saved. There are 30,000 people who have out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, but fewer than one in 10 survives. If only someone knew how to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, and if a defibrillator was available, survival rates could increase to 50%.

Emergency life support skills are a set of actions needed to keep somebody alive until professional help arrives. They include performing CPR, putting an unconscious person into the recovery position, dealing with choking and serious bleeding, and helping someone who might be having a heart attack. Such skills are particularly crucial at the time of a cardiac arrest, when every second counts. For every minute that passes in cardiac arrest, the chance of survival falls by 10%. If CPR is started immediately, the time that the person remains in a shockable, and hence reversible, condition will be prolonged. It also means that there will be more of the person’s brain function left—more of them left—if they are resuscitated. At the moment, it is down to luck.

Three years ago, Fabrice Muamba had a cardiac arrest when he was playing for Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham. Fabrice was lucky because he had his cardiac arrest where there were people who were trained in what to do. He was lucky because the club medics and the paramedics gave him immediate CPR on the pitch, so his brain was saved. He was lucky because medics did not give up on him and worked on him for 78 minutes until his heart restarted. Because he was with people who knew what to do, we still have the charming, intelligent Fabrice in this world with us.

My sister’s friend, Malcolm McCormick, was also lucky. Just a month after Fabrice’s cardiac arrest, Malcolm went to school to pick up his grandchildren and he keeled over, effectively dead, not breathing, heart not beating. Malcolm was lucky because one of the people waiting to collect children was a retained firefighter who started to give CPR. He was very lucky because once a month another firefighter volunteers in the school tuck shop, and it was his Friday to be working, so he came and took control of the situation.

Malcolm was also lucky because a defibrillator was available, and he was rushed to a specialist hospital. Three days later he left hospital with very sore ribs, but alive and with his brain intact. Four months later, he was a Games maker at the Paralympics.