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

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Philip Davies

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, two of them specifically raised the issue of tick-box exercises and asked how, if the requirement were in the national curriculum, it would be measured and whether Ofsted would become involved. If not, what would it mean? Some schools would be exemplars that provide superb quality training and work with great local groups such as Newark Community First Aid or St John Ambulance, and others would do much more modest training—an online exercise or whatever that is considered to be the bare minimum. That might be because they are not interested or, more likely, because they do not have the time or the resources. Others might feel that it is more appropriate to concentrate on academic outcomes because they are struggling to educate children with particular needs.

[Philip Davies]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in order for the training to be a meaningful compulsory part of the curriculum, it would need to be subject to an Ofsted inspection to make sure that it was being done properly, because otherwise there would be nothing to say whether schools were carrying it out, and that therefore it would be another part of a school inspection that I am sure schools could well do without?

[Robert Jenrick]

If we believe in the principle of training in first aid for young people, or indeed people of any age, we want to ensure quality, and quality is clearly very variable. If we provide maximum flexibility so that a school can take it very seriously or not seriously at all, then the whole scheme could be jeopardised.

I want to refer Members to my local group, Newark Community First Aid, and what it considers to be high quality. In its training it uses qualified doctors, nurses and extremely experienced first aiders. Its minimum course lasts two and half hours and has to be re-done regularly. Its preferred course lasts four hours. If we want good-quality training, some minimum standards are involved. I do not want thousands of young people to believe that they have had high-quality first aid or CPR training when they have had a half-hour video presentation—although I am sure that would be better than nothing—rather than having gone to one of these superb local community groups and spent a whole afternoon or day being trained.