Automated External Defibrillators: Public Access

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I am required to read out some advice from Mr Speaker. I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate. That is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. That can be done at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered public access to Automatic External Defibrillators.

I am pleased to see many hon. Members from all political parties in the Chamber. I will also say, because I mean it, that I am especially pleased to see the Minister in her place and I look forward to her response. She understands the importance of the debate. Each hon. Member who speaks will illustrate the strength of the need for the Government and—dare I say it—civil servants to understand the importance of the debate. If they understand it, and if the Government press the issue, the general public will be glad to see it happening.

It is a pleasure to have this debate before the Second Reading of the Automated External Defibrillators (Public Access) Bill on 10 December. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting my application. The intention is to deliver public access to AEDs across the whole United Kingdom. All MPs will have at least one person in their constituency who has been saved by an AED.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) who co-sponsored the debate and supported me in making it happen. I appreciate his co-operation, partnership and friendship. He made representations to the Committee alongside me and shared his own experience, which he will tell us about shortly. He has referred to the dedicated work of his constituent Councillor David Sutton-Lloyd, who advocates and lobbies with him about the importance of awareness and public availability of these lifesaving devices.

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[Jim Shannon]

I certainly do. Living in a rural area as I do, I know the hon. Lady is absolutely right. I would hope and expect that to be the case. I want to give others the opportunity to speak and will make my closing comments now.

Let us remember why we are here today. We are here because there are currently over 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the United Kingdom each year. Of those people, only one out of 10 will survive. I put it to the Minister, the Government and civil servants that I want—indeed, I think we all want—the other nine to survive as well. How can they survive? They can survive if we have access to AEDs in the places where people are, including in rural places. That is why we must push this forward.

What value do we put on a life? A typical defibrillator for the community can cost £800. The Library notes refer to the cost being between £600 and £2,500. However, across Northern Ireland, with the efforts of all the charities and groups I have mentioned, the defibrillators are already in place. I have also mentioned the efforts of organisations such as the Premier League and the Education Ministers here in Westminster and back home in Northern Ireland, and I suspect the same is true in Scotland and Wales as well. That is why, when the legislation is introduced, it will be to encourage those who have not yet gone to that extra stage to make sure that there are defibrillators. That is why this debate is incredibly important. If the cost is £600 or, as it is in Northern Ireland, £800, that is a small price for the Government and the private sector to pay potentially to save lives.

Is it not right that every leisure centre should have a defibrillator? Is it not right that there should be one in the centre of every town? Is it not right that defibrillators should be available and accessible in restaurants, and outside buildings for times when people are out and about, including to visit pubs and restaurants at night time?

There is a campaign called The Circuit, which registers all community AEDs. The sale of AEDs rose significantly after the Euros incident, and when AEDs are registered on a central database, emergency call handlers can direct callers to the nearest AED. The objective of this Bill is to have an AED within three minutes of everyone. That is what the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West wants to have; indeed, I think it is what we all want to have.

The Bill does not cost the Government anything. I have said it three times now; forgive me for saying it three times, but I want to emphasise it and say why it is important. Here is a Bill that delivers across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This Bill will save lives, which is why it is important.

I say to my hon. Friends—all the Members here are my hon. Friends; to be truthful, on this issue all Members are probably hon. Friends whether they are in the Chamber or outside it—that this proposed legislation is neither to the left nor the right of politics. It is about what is right and what is wrong. It is about our whole society and equipping it with the means to save lives. Can there be a more civilised or caring thing to do? If words could make the difference—I will use a quotation, but before I do so I will say one other thing.

Today, this House can support the campaign to deliver AEDs, at no cost to the Government. AEDs save lives. That is the purpose of the Bill—it is to save lives. It is about those nine out of 10 who die every year because the AEDs were not available. It is as simple as that. It is about saving lives. For me, that is the crux of it.

I say that life and death are in the hands of the Minister and her Government, and they would seem to be in the hands of civil servants too. So what action will those hands—the hands of Ministers, the Government and civil servants—take in the coming days when the Bill comes back to the House on 10 December?

I will close with very poignant words. I know that the Minister knows that they refer to wee Oliver King. His dad said, and I have never forgotten it:

“Had the swimming pool had an AED, my son, Oliver, would still be here today.”

That is what we are here for.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate can last until 3 o’clock. I am obliged to call the Front Benchers no later than 2.27 pm and the guideline limits are: 10 minutes for the Scottish National party; 10 minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition; 10 minutes for the Minister; and then Jim Shannon will have three minutes at the end to sum up the debate. So, until 2.27 pm, we are in Back-Bench time. Four distinguished Back Benchers are seeking to catch my eye and we will start with Rob Roberts.

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[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I call Richard Thomson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I am the Front-Bench spokesperson, Mr Hollobone.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I do apologise—my mistake. In that case, your able replacement is Stuart C. McDonald.

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[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. It has been an absolute pleasure to support the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his endeavours. I thank him for his kind comments, and thank all other colleagues who are supporting the debate.

The importance of access to AEDs in a life-threatening medical emergency cannot be disputed. In addition to the high-profile and extremely upsetting events at Euro 2020 when Christian Erikson suffered his cardiac arrest, there was a similar event in Newcastle’s football ground on TV the other week, when an 80-year-old gentleman collapsed. Fortunately, there was an AED to help that situation too.

Is the Minister aware that in the UK, nearly 300 school children die of sudden cardiac arrest every year? The emotional statements of colleagues on the specifics mentioned only further endorse the need for something to happen on these proposals. An obvious start for this is our public buildings, such as schools, libraries, and local government buildings, to have access to AEDs.

Unfortunately, without on-site and urgent access to defibrillation, the vast majority of cardiac arrests will be fatal. At present, there are just not enough AEDs accessible to people. As has already been said, for each minute that passes following a cardiac arrest without CPR, the survival rate drops by 20%.

Given that the average response time for emergency services to a cardiac arrest is just under seven minutes, we cannot rely purely on our emergency services—however good they are—to fill the gap. If we want to save as many lives as possible, we need as many defibrillators in the community as possible. That is particularly true in rural areas, like most of my Sedgefield constituency, where call-out times are naturally longer, simply because of the distances the emergency services will have to travel. Prompt, community access to defibrillators can dramatically help improve the chances of survival. Indeed, it would help to level up between urban and rural communities.

The AED Bill would make an important legislative change, helping to build a better, safer environment for people in the community and increasing the cardiac arrest survival rate. As a nation, we have the opportunity to be world leaders in ensuring that we all have access to defibrillation. We should we pass this legislation into law and be the first country to mandate that new public buildings provide access to a defibrillator.

I am aware that the Department for Education offers reduced-cost defibrillators through NHS Supply Chain’s Defibs4Schools programme, which in itself shows that it values the provision. Could the Minister encourage it to go further, particularly with new school builds, and also push other Departments to follow suit? It is clear that it would be challenging to ensure that all current public buildings have AEDs, but it is something the Minister should look at trying to mandate. I strongly encourage her to push her Department—and indeed other ministerial colleagues—to look for cross-departmental engagement to introduce that compulsion for new public buildings, whether they are for local government, health, education, or other purposes.

As has been mentioned, mandated AEDs on public buildings will work best if they are comprehensively mapped so members of the public could be directed to their nearest location. On that, I do like the earlier proposal for an app-driven solution. The proposed Bill would take an important step towards ensuring that AEDs can be readily located wherever they are needed. In addition to ensuring that AEDs are mapped, we need to ensure that we have a system in which people are clear about whose responsibility it is to maintain them, particularly if they are in the public domain.

We all know—we have heard many representations today—that excellent work has done up and down the country by volunteers who understand the importance of AED access to their communities. As already mentioned, in Newton Aycliffe, for example, David Sutton-Lloyd has worked tirelessly to ensure that 32 AEDs are now available to residents. However, I believe that we, as the legislature and elected representatives, have a duty to ensure that all new buildings are fitted with AEDs, and that the work of volunteers is to complement that, rather than provide the initial provision.

Again, this was mentioned earlier, but I have been educated on the use of defibrillators. Mr Sutton-Lloyd is incredibly active in running training courses. I am not sure “training” is the right word. It is not training, it is education. Unless we know about these pieces of kit, we could get concerned that the electricity could cause problems. As has been mentioned, it cannot do that; the machines are good. The machine makes the decision and it is not possible to use a defibrillator on somebody if it is not the right thing to do. I encourage the Minister to promote campaigns to educate the public around this, so that when defibrillators are necessary people are confident and not worried about using them.

To summarise, the provision of AEDs, in and around our communities, is a real aid to saving lives at minimal cost. The opportunity to make them compulsory in public buildings, at least initially in new-build public buildings, is surely a no-brainer. How could the Minister consider otherwise?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench speeches. Apologies to the Scottish National party spokesman for being so keen to get him in earlier, but his moment has now come.