Statutory PHSE Education

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing this important debate. As I considered my contribution, I was struck by a story that I was recently told by a pupil of a local school in my constituency, leading me to focus specifically on the provision of first aid training in schools.

When visiting St Paul’s School for Girls, I met a student who had recently witnessed a woman collapse in the street in front of her. Rather than panic, as I fear I and many of us in this room may have done, the young student displayed great maturity, helping the woman into the recovery position while also applying pressure to a head wound that she had sustained. As it turned out, the woman was a refugee who did not speak any English, leaving her unable to explain what was happening to passers-by. By having the wherewithal and composure to carry out those actions, the student helped to save the life of a woman who had in fact suffered a heart attack. For her actions, the student was later given a richly deserved commendation by local emergency services.

That student was able to provide the life-saving assistance that she did only because she had studied first aid as part of her PSHE course at school, enabling her to recognise what was happening and implement vital assistance before the emergency services arrived. How many of us in this room could say that we would be able to do the same? Would we be able to step in and offer that vital first-response assistance until the professionals arrived, thinking how terrible the situation was or wishing there was someone there to help?

The “Every Child a Lifesaver” coalition, which is made up of the British Red Cross, the British Heart Foundation and the St John Ambulance, is campaigning to make first aid a mandatory component of a new, statutory PSHE curriculum, and I would like to offer it my wholehearted support. This is not a big commitment. Just one hour a year over the course of their time in school could provide students with the essential skills, including CPR, that they need to save a life. The statistics are irrefutable. Only 5% of adults would feel knowledgeable, confident and willing to act in a first aid emergency. More than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the UK every year, and fewer than one in 10 people survive, and most—around 80%—out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the home, while the immediate initiation of CPR can double the chances of survival in some cases. Organisations such as those I have mentioned provide all the necessary tools to teach these vital skills, and it is up to us as legislators to give them the platform that they need to impart their knowledge to today’s students.

There are more than just the obvious life-saving benefits to students of statutory first aid training. First aid training develops leadership skills, decision making, resilience and the ability to cope with adversity, supporting personal development and employment skills. It can improve young people’s life chances and empower them to step forward and take responsibility, while providing them with a sense of contributing to the community within our shared society. It will also ensure universal access to this essential knowledge and life skill, improving health inequalities across all communities and at every socioeconomic level.

The Department for Education consultation on making PSHE, including first aid, compulsory is open until only the 12th of this month, so I hope that this debate will raise the profile of this important decision and encourage as many as possible to take part in the consultation, so as to ensure that more children are able to act as my constituent did, and feel confident enough to step in and provide what could prove to be life-saving assistance to a person in need.