Sudden Adult Death Syndrome

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) on securing this debate. It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) and other Members who have made constructive contributions. Compared with some other debates that I have been involved with in recent weeks and months, the unanimity today is a refreshing change.

I pay tribute not only to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton and the other Members who are in Westminster Hall today, but to the people—more than 110,000 of them—who signed the online petition that was set up by the Oliver King Foundation. Indeed, I pay tribute to the King family, Jake Morrison and all those who have been instrumental in taking forward the campaign. I also thank the Minister for agreeing to meet campaigners; that is very important. It shows the public interest in and the importance of the issues that we are debating today.

As you might be able to tell from my accent, Mr Amess, I am not actually from Merseyside, Liverpool or the north-west.

[Andrew Percy]

No?

[Grahame M. Morris]

Well, I am fifth-generation from that area actually, so I have a connection with it. However, I am from the north-east and I know that many colleagues from the north-east and from across the whole country are concerned and share the aims of the OK Foundation, so I hope the Minister will support the campaign to provide defibrillators in all public buildings.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton referred to the protection that we enjoy here in the Palace of Westminster. I tried to find out precisely how many defibrillators there are in the Palace. There are notices about them at the end of every corridor, including my corridor, and I found that there are actually 16 defibrillators in the Palace. Somebody here obviously knows the importance of early defibrillation in the event of a cardiac arrest, and they are to be complimented for that. The general public should enjoy a similar level of protection.

This is a matter of life and death. As my hon. Friend said, an estimated 60,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur each year and, incredibly, of the 30,000 cases attended by medical professionals, fewer than one in five of the people affected receive the life-saving intervention they need following a survivable cardiac arrest. I did not realise until I looked at the numbers involved quite how mind-boggling they are. There are nearly 100,000 deaths each year in the UK due to cardiac arrest, which is more than 250 a day, making it one of the UK’s biggest killers.

Hon. Members have already mentioned the British Heart Foundation’s high-profile “Staying Alive” campaign and information film on hands-only CPR. The House will be relieved to know, Mr Amess, that I shall not attempt to sing it or repeat it, but that was a successful campaign. It is reported that in November 28 lives were saved by people who learnt how to administer CPR from the advert headed up the footballer Vinnie Jones, or were inspired by it to take further lessons and coaching, and I imagine that that number is even higher today.

I was surprised by the UK’s record on emergency life-support skills. A British Red Cross survey found that only 7% of people in the UK have first aid skills, compared with 80% of people in Scandinavian countries and a similar figure in Germany. I was surprised, because in the area where I grew up and have always lived, there was quite a strong tradition with the St John Ambulance, and so on, so I expected the figures to be higher, but perhaps it is a function of the society in which we live. That is a major omission and I hope that the Minister takes note of it.

A further survey of public support carried out by the British Heart Foundation found that 73%—almost three quarters—of schoolchildren wanted to learn how to resuscitate someone and give first aid, and more than three quarters of teachers and parents agreed that it would be a good thing to be taught in schools. I hope that the Minister will speak with her counterparts in the Department for Education and press for these life-saving first aid skills to be a core part of the national curriculum, to ensure that all young people leave school equipped with the ability to save a life. That would be really worthwhile.

We know that time matters when cardiac arrest occurs. For every minute that passes following a cardiac arrest and before CPR is administered, the chances of survival are reduced by around 10%. Although CPR can buy more time, defibrillation is the only effective treatment for cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation, where the heart quivers and stops pumping blood around the body. The British Heart Foundation has found that, for every minute that passes without defibrillation, chances of survival decrease by 14%. We have heard how CPR can improve the chances of survival. We have also heard about research that shows that applying a controlled shock within the first five minutes of collapse provides the best chance of survival. It is therefore essential that defibrillators are readily available, particularly in places where there is higher incidence of cardiac arrest or where it might be difficult for emergency services to arrive quickly.

I applaud the efforts of one of my local newspapers, The Northern Echo, which has been running the “A Chance to Live” campaign in my region, promoting the use of defibrillators in public places, particularly gymnasiums, where there is a greater risk of cardiac arrest occurring both before and after strenuous effort. I am pleased to note—we did a bit of a survey—that all the local authority and council-run gyms in the north-east have defibrillators and staff trained to use them. It has been reported, however, that 80% of private gyms do not have some form of life-saving equipment available; it does not seem to matter whether it is a small gym or one of the larger, more up-market leisure gyms. When challenged about the lack of defibrillators in their gyms, Bannatynes, headquartered in Darlington, issued a statement explaining that they did not have defibrillators because

“they are a specialist piece of medical equipment, which should only be operated by a qualified medical professional.”

I do not know if hon. Members have any contact with Duncan Bannatyne, or if he will get a copy of this debate, but having heard the comprehensive, complete and compelling case advanced by my hon. Friend, it is clear that it is not necessary to have comprehensive training to use a defibrillator. I hope that in the course of this debate we can put to bed this misconception.

As we have heard, modern defibrillators are designed to be used by untrained members of the public; they provide audio and visual instructions to the user and the machines will automatically diagnose the patient and deliver an electric shock only if it is necessary. To provide a medical opinion, as we have the Minister here, in my area in County Durham, Dr Harry Byrne, vice chairman of NHS Darlington clinical commissioning group, has described defibrillators as the

“single greatest advance in out of hospital cardiac assistance since the invention of chest compressions or CPR…You don’t have to be a trained first aider to use one. You just pull it out of the box and follow the instructions step by step. It even tells you what to do”,

as we have heard, from my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy).

A defibrillator is an essential life-saving piece of equipment and I hope defibrillators will become common, not just in schools, but in workplaces, too. Hon. Members have suggested that they should be in shopping centres and nursing homes. They should be in community buildings as well. Certainly, though, they should be in schools. I agree with my hon. Friend that they should be as common as fire extinguishers and smoke alarms. I hope that the Minister supports these measures and will be proactive in protecting the public and ensuring that everyone, no matter where they live and work, has the best chance of surviving cardiac arrest.