First Aid Techniques: National Curriculum Debate

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Department: Department for Education

First Aid Techniques: National Curriculum

Nia Griffith Excerpts
Tuesday 10th March 2015

(9 years, 8 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Julie Hilling Portrait Julie Hilling
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I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. For me, it starts in schools. If only we could have—I will go on to talk about this more—a generation of life savers coming out of school. We have millions of people in the community who will not have had the benefit of being trained in schools. I applaud his organisations and the organisations in my constituency and across the country that do amazing work to raise money for defibrillators and for training individuals in how to do CPR.

Survival should not be down to luck. There are far too many other examples of people who suffer cardiac arrest and are not saved because the people around them do not know what to do: children such as Ciaran Geddes, who died aged 7; 12-year-old Oliver King; 16-year-old Daniel Young; or 17-year-old Guy Evans. Their mums are campaigning for defibrillators and emergency life-saving skills to be taught in schools.

Nia Griffith Portrait Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
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Before I became an MP in 2005, I taught in a school where every single pupil in year 8 did a 12-week first aid course as part of their personal and social education. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the type of programme that should be implemented so that every single child coming out of school would have those skills?