Defibrillators

Torcuil Crichton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) for bringing this debate to the House, and I wish him well in his recovery.

A few years ago, not many of us in rural Scotland would have known about the importance of defibrillators, and far less about how to use them in the unlikely event of something going wrong. But thanks to the efforts of one Scottish charity, Lucky2BHere, and the work of one individual, the late Ross Cowie of Portree, an old friend of mine, there are 1,000 public access defibrillators, and 5,000 people have been trained in their use over the past two decades by that one organisation.

Ross Cowie suffered a cardiac arrest in 2006 outside the clubhouse of Skye Camanachd, the island shinty team he led to victory in the 1990 cup final. His life was saved only because the local ambulance with a defibrillator happened to be passing by. His original aim was to install one external defibrillator outside his clubhouse in Portree, but the campaign has grown to deliver more than 1,000 defibs across rural Scotland, from Shetland to Dumfries. There is even one in the Flannan isles, 21 miles west of the Isle of Lewis and uninhabited apart from the ghosts of lighthouse keepers, but it is there should it be needed by passing fishermen or yachtsmen.

Just as important as its work in installing defibs, Lucky2BHere has trained thousands of volunteers to administer devices, to ensure that people know how to use them and the associated first aid emergency kit in the instance of cardiac arrest. We are all sometimes left feeling helpless. My hon. Friend mentioned his friend Jack Hurley, a footballer who collapsed while playing. We all remember the collapse of the Danish footballer Christian Eriksen during the Euro 2020 championship. That case highlighted the important difference between Denmark and the UK, because every Danish player on that field knew what to do in the case of cardiac arrest because they had been trained in school. That is a key difference between the UK, or Scotland, and Denmark. Training on defibs and lifesaving is compulsory in schools in Denmark. In Scotland, every local authority has committed to teach CPR in its secondary schools, yet as far as I know, it is up to individual schools to implement that, rather than its being mandatory.

British Heart Foundation Scotland has launched a new interactive online learning tool to equip thousands of schoolchildren with essential lifesaving skills. Classroom RevivR teaches students aged 11 to 16 how to save lives. It meets Scottish curriculum standards and can be taught in one lesson plan. It should be rolled out across all Scottish schools, because if young people learn the difference between cardiac arrest and a heart attack, and how to respond to an unconscious person, they can save lives, just as Ross Cowie and Lucky2BHere saved lives in his time.

Ross passed away in October 2024 at the age of 64, but his legacy lives on in the hearts and actions of all who support Lucky2BHere. It would be a fitting tribute to him and to the work of Lucky2BHere if training in life support became part of the curriculum across Scotland, and I would venture even further to say that such training should be a requirement to obtain a driving licence in the UK, so that we all knew what to do if we saw someone collapse.