Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to increase the availability of defibrillators at school sites.

All new and refurbished state funded schools are required to have at least one defibrillator installed on their premises, and we encourage all other schools to include defibrillators as part of their first aid equipment.

Defibrillators are currently available for schools and other education providers in the UK to purchase through the NHS Supply Chain’s defibs4schools programme at a reduced cost. These arrangements are available to all UK schools, including academies and independent schools, sixth-form colleges, further education institutions and early years settings.

The department wants as many schools as possible to have this equipment and we are exploring all available options to see what more we can do.