Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I am delighted to be able to speak in this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) for making first aid education in schools the subject of her private Member’s Bill. It is a really important subject that I have become very aware of over the years. I remember the problems we sometimes had, when I was an NHS worker in a busy pathology department, in getting members of staff to come forward to train as first aiders in the workplace. It is surprising that, in an NHS setting, we had difficulty getting volunteers. If we were all taught first aid as children in school, it would normalise the subject, and make first aid far more accepted as a life skill; it would then be a far less daunting prospect as an adult.

As a local councillor, I trained in the use of public access defibrillators, and I know only too well how essential it is to have trained members of the public available should there be an emergency and a need to put the defibrillator to use. Teaching first aid in schools would make it far less a matter of lucky chance that a trained first aider was in the vicinity of an emergency. When all our children are trained first aiders, it will give the victim of an arrest or another medical emergency a much better chance of receiving life-saving emergency first aid.

In my constituency, Heywood and Middleton, first responders and the North West ambulance service have done and are doing a great job getting defibrillators installed around the borough of Rochdale. Getting the equipment is one thing, but without trained members of the public who feel confident using them, the defibrillators are mere wall decoration. They are easy to use—I can vouch for that. Once one opens them up, one is talked through the procedure by a reassuring voice, but the key thing is confidence to use them.

The Bill is not just about defibrillators. It aims to ensure that more people have the skills and the confidence to act if they witness a range of medical emergencies, such as choking, bleeding, an asthma attack or a seizure, or a cardiac arrest when a defibrillator is not readily available. By teaching our children first aid skills at a young age and making CPR part of the national curriculum, we can instil that confidence and ensure that surviving a cardiac arrest becomes far less a matter of chance and good luck. The national curriculum framework is clear that every state-funded school should teach subjects that promote

“the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society”

and prepare

“pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life”.

First aid education amply fulfils both those criteria. It can easily be incorporated into many areas of the curriculum, as has been mentioned—for example, PSHE, citizenship, sports education and PE.

I pay tribute to Siddal Moor sports college in my constituency, which teaches first aid in year 10 as part of a health and social care course. Such teaching should, however, be wider—every child should have access to first aid training. Support for the mandatory teaching of first aid comes from countries such as Denmark, where CPR training became compulsory in 2005 for all schoolchildren over 11 years of age. In the following six years, the provision of CPR by members of the public more than doubled and survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest tripled.

I would like to pay tribute to voluntary groups such as cadets, the scout and guide movements, St John Ambulance, the British Heart Foundation and many others who do a great job of teaching first aid skills. But 60% of children have had no first aid training whatever, and only 24% of schools currently offer first aid training. Without this becoming mandatory, we will still have a large section of young people who do not have the skills to potentially save lives. If we approve this Bill, we will be going a long way towards improving the safety and survival of everyone in our society. None of us knows when we might need the skills of a trained first aider.