Armed Forces Covenant Annual Report

Debate between Will Quince and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Thursday 7th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I am sure that the Minister will consider my hon. Friend’s point and move forwards on one of the most critical areas that we need to ensure works smoothly for all armed forces personnel.

I have some concerns about two areas in the healthcare part of the covenant. First—this ties in with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—is the commitment that family members should maintain their position on waiting lists in the healthcare system even though they are moving around the UK due to new postings. I have been made aware several times that that commitment is not very well known in medical frameworks or to armed forces families. The 2015 report highlights that anecdotal evidence. In the tri-service families continuous attitudes survey, only 37% said that waiting times did not increase when they had to move. There is work to do in the NHS framework and on its commitment to the covenant to give the families better support and continuity of medical care.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I represent a garrison town and I am a former school governor of a predominantly military school. Does my hon. Friend agree that schools have a part to play? When members of the armed forces move, places should be available in schools that understand the military covenant, the important differences and, indeed, the important role that the service pupil premium can play in a school.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

That is absolutely right. The challenge across many Departments is to ensure that armed forces personnel and their families are clearly identifiable to make it easy for the public services that are needed to support them, wherever they are.

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

Debate between Will Quince and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I agree absolutely. My knowledge of first aid, which I was taught when I was 12, has stuck with and empowered me throughout my life, and I have had need to use it. My first aid education helped me and my fellow girl guides to prepare for life by developing our character and resilience to take on unexpected emergencies with a strength of purpose and enough knowledge to help others, but there are also broader health considerations and areas in which greater first aid knowledge could be of benefit. We all know that our accident and emergency departments are under increasing pressure to treat people.

[Will Quince]

We often talk about the cost of doing something, but we rarely talk about the cost of not doing something. Does my hon. Friend agree that there might be considerable savings to the NHS by taking this preventive measure?

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I absolutely agree: our A & E departments are under enormous pressure. Although the Bill is not a panacea, evidence suggests that greater knowledge of first aid can help to reduce the number of unnecessary visits to A & E and reduce the pressure on our paramedics.

Empowering people with quick and simple skills and the basic medical understanding to save lives is so profoundly important that it deserves a place in the school day. Some schools already do an excellent job of teaching these essential life skills, with the support of charities such as St John Ambulance, for instance. The Government have already mandated that all schools must provide swimming instruction, either in key stage 1 or key stage 2, to ensure that every pupil can swim competently, confidently and proficiently, and perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations. This Department for Education rule is for the purpose of saving lives. How much more of that goal might be achieved over the life of every child taught basic life-saving skills such as CPR, how to stem the flow of blood from a wound and how the recovery position can stop someone choking to death?

In my constituency, the St John Ambulance cadets in Alnwick learn first aid in their weekly meetings, and then go into their local schools, where invited, to share their knowledge. It is a wonderful example of teamwork and local knowledge sharing among peer groups that is helping children in my constituency to become life savers. However, despite widespread support for the idea of first aid education, only one in four secondary schools are taking it on. It is a very limited spread of life-saving skills.

The Bill is not about imposing even more targets on schools and teachers. Schools and headteachers would have the flexibility to decide when and how to impart these core skills—whether in morning assemblies, as my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) suggested, or as part of PHSE, physical education or biology. There are any number of places where this could be brought into the curriculum. It will not require teachers to have any prior medical knowledge, and neither will it take up a huge degree of the school timetable. As has been said, CPR can be taught in as little as 30 minutes—a small investment in a child’s school year for a huge reward, not just for the children and their families, but for the whole community as they grow up and become resilient members of our country.

These skills are quick and easy to teach and learn. The British Heart Foundation, the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance, for which I do a lot of work, and other organisations provide free resources for schools, so there is no cost implication for schools attached to this excellent Bill. There is cross-party backing for it, and I know many colleagues will, like me, have been inundated with messages of support from constituents.