Life-saving Skills in Schools

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It also works if the person sings “Nellie the Elephant”—for those of us who are more musically challenged or who cannot remember “Stayin’ Alive”—although it has to be a fast version.

[Dr Lewis]

I look forward to the hon. Lady’s rendition when she speaks—very shortly, I hope—and I pay tribute to her, to my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) and to other hon. Members. I was particularly touched by the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), when he said what happened to him and his late father.

My own background in this subject is slight. I have been involved with organisations such as Cardiac Risk in the Young, which campaigns to have young people screened for heart defects that otherwise no one would know were present, and with the battle to save the children’s heart hospital at Southampton general hospital, which is one of the best in the country and fortunately will not now be reorganised out of existence.

My immediate incentive for coming to today’s debate was a letter I received from my constituent Natasha Jones, who lives in Brockenhurst, who has set up an organisation called Baby Resuscitation. During the summer of 2010, she experienced an episode with her 11-week-old daughter of what is known as near-miss cot death, when her baby stopped breathing and was drifting in and out of consciousness. At the time, my constituent had no resuscitation training. It was only her maternal instincts that succeeded in keeping her baby alive until professional help arrived. As in the case of so many others, including my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon, the experience motivated my constituent, spurring her on to do something to ensure that the availability of skill would not be hit and miss in future. That is why she set up the Baby Resuscitation scheme, which is over-subscribed and to which parents go to get the skills they need. The point she makes to me is how much more vitally helpful and productive it would be if children had to learn such skills at school.

I know many people want to speak. This seems to me such an obviously admirable cause that I do not need to say anything more, other than that I wholeheartedly support it and I look to Minister to give the campaign the encouragement and endorsement that it clearly deserves.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing this debate. I also pay tribute to my colleagues in the campaign, the hon. Members for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), which is dear to our hearts.

This is a

“no brainer, it’s just common sense”.

Those are not my words, but the words of Dr Andy Lockey from the Resuscitation Council. He and another 124,665 people are calling on the Government to put emergency life support skills in the curriculum for all schools. For just two hours every year, we could make every child a life saver—just two hours that may save some of the 150,000 people who die each year in situations where first aid could have made a difference; two hours that could save some of the 60,000 people who have a cardiac arrest outside the hospital environment.

On 17 March this year, Fabrice Muamba was playing for Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham when he suffered a cardiac arrest. Fabrice was really lucky, because he had his cardiac arrest in a public place where there were trained first aiders; because the paramedics at the match were knowledgeable enough to give him immediate CPR on the pitch, so that his brain was saved; and because medics did not give up, but worked on him for 78 minutes until his heart restarted. Just because he was with people who knew what to do he survived, although sadly he has had to give up football—I was interested to hear the hon. Member for North Swindon say that it might not be for life. Fabrice joined us to take the British Heart Foundation’s petition, signed by 124,665 people, to Downing street.

My sister’s friend Malcolm McCormick was also really lucky. In April this year, he went to school to pick up his grandchildren when he keeled over—effectively dead, not breathing, heart not beating. Malcolm was really lucky because one of the people waiting to collect their children was a retained firefighter, who started to give CPR. He was also really lucky because once a month another firefighter volunteers in the school tuck shop and it was his Friday to be working, so he came out and took control of the situation. Malcolm was also lucky because a defibrillator was available and he was rushed to a specialist hospital. Malcolm left hospital three days later with very sore ribs, albeit alive and with his brain intact. Four months later he was fit enough to be a games maker at the Paralympic games.

However, it should not be down to luck, because there are far too many other examples of people suffering a cardiac arrest not being saved because the people around them do not know what to do. They include children such as Ciaran Geddes, who died aged seven, 12-year-old Oliver King, 16-year-old Daniel Young and 17-year-old Guy Evans. Their mums are campaigning for defibrillators and for emergency life-saving skills to be taught in schools. The Government have a chance to make a difference—to save lives simply, cheaply and immediately. They have said that they want a national curriculum to reflect the

“essential knowledge and understanding that pupils should be expected to have to enable them to take their place as educated members of society.”

Surely knowing how to save a life would be absolutely in keeping with that aspiration.

I cannot imagine anything worse than watching a loved one die and not knowing what to do—especially if we find out later that doing something may have saved their life—so I have become a Heartstart trainer. I can teach people to do CPR and deal with choking and bleeding, and my staff are Heartstart trained. All the secondary schools in Bolton West have become or are becoming Heartstart schools, and they are rolling the programme out to the primary schools. There is co-ordinated action across Bolton to train as many children and adults in emergency life-saving skills as possible. The North West ambulance service, the fire brigade, Bolton Wanderers, Bolton council and the British Heart Foundation are all working together to teach the skills and promote defibrillators. In the new year, The Bolton News will run a campaign to get schools to sign up for Heartstart and raise funds for defibrillators in schools and public places.

Fabrice Muamba’s collapse raised awareness locally about the dangers of sudden cardiac arrest. The response in Bolton has been fantastic, but it cannot go far enough until every child leaves school a life saver. I met two 13-year-olds in Horwich on Saturday who had just learnt life support skills as part of their PE lessons in Rivington and Blackrod high school. Demi told me it made her feel good about herself because she can save a life. Matthew told me that he feels confident because if anything happened to someone, he would know what to do. Mark Roach, the Heartstart co-ordinator at Ladybridge high school, told me that his pupils leave school with a real life skill that they can pass on to others, and they do the lessons during form time. There are many places where Heartstart would fit into the curriculum. My local lead teacher for PE believes it would fit perfectly into the PE curriculum. Other schools do it as part of personal, social, health and economic education or biology, but where it fits is less important. Emergency life-saving skills should be part of the core curriculum, taught in all schools.

The Government like to compare themselves internationally. As has been said, in France, Denmark and Norway, ELS is already a compulsory part of the curriculum, as it is in a number of states in Australia and 36 of the 50 states in America. In Seattle, because no one can graduate from school or gain their driving licence without leaning first aid skills, more than half the population is trained in emergency life support. In the UK, there is only a 30% chance of a bystander administered CPR; in Seattle it is 60%. People have double the chance of surviving a cardiac arrest in Seattle than they do in the UK. Since the British Heart Foundation has run its “Hands-only CPR” advert with Vinnie Jones—to “Stayin’ Alive”—another 28 people have been saved because bystanders “had a go”, but it is not enough. As Dr Lockey says,

“Every year we don’t teach Emergency Life Support Skills to all school children, people are dying unnecessarily”.

The Government should act now and make emergency life-saving skills part of the core curriculum in schools. They can save lives now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I have said, I completely agree with those sentiments. This is an important area for students to study, but there are different and better ways of achieving that.

[Julie Hilling]

Will the Minister give way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am sorry; I have taken quite a few interventions, and Mr Deputy Speaker is keen to get on to the next debate.

As I have said, I believe that it is best to win hearts and minds. We can then ensure that the teaching of life-saving skills in our curriculum is first class. Compulsion could result in the subject being taught in a tick-box fashion.

Schools can choose to cover ELS as part of non-statutory personal, social, health and economic education, which we have already talked about. At primary level, PSHE provides for pupils to be taught aboutbasic emergency procedures and where to get help, and at secondary schools they can develop the skills tocope with emergency situations that require basic first aid procedures, including, at key stage 4, resuscitation techniques.

In this afternoon’s debate, I was struck by the fact that 86% of teachers are in favour of teaching life-saving skills at school, but that the take-up is much lower. From all the discussions I have had with the professionals in the organisations that design life-saving courses and offer them in schools, I have found that the reason teachers often give for not being able to take up these good programmes is that they do not have enough discretion within their teaching time and their curriculum time to be able to teach those subjects. Our whole aim of giving teachers more discretion and more time will surely mean much stronger take-up. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot pointed out, 86% of teachers want this subject to be taught. That is already a long way towards 100%; there is only another 14% to persuade.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments, but my point is that teachers want to do this and that we are giving them space in the curriculum to allow them to do so. I think that will result in a very positive outcome, but I also think it is better to win hearts and minds and allow freedom of judgment.

[Julie Hilling]

rose—

[Elizabeth Truss]

I need to reach the end of my comments to provide an opportunity for my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot to reply to the debate.

Today’s debate has been very helpful, and I agree completely with the sentiments expressed by hon. Members, but I think the best way of achieving the goal we want is to give teachers the freedom and the discretion to allow them to follow their natural instincts. We have already seen that 86% of teachers want to achieve this, so let us allow them to get on with it.