Information Sheet
May 2019
First Aid in Schools
During the first week of this year, the Education Secretary, Damian Hinds, confirmed that CPR will be added to the school curriculum in England. This was touched on in our October 2018 newsletter.
 
The new proposals will mean that First Aid and CPR will be added to the curriculum as part of the Department for Education’s plan to strengthen teaching of health, sex and relationships education in England from 2020.
 
Qualsafe: With, out of hospital cardiac arrest survival rates being up to three times higher in countries where First Aid is taught in schools compared to the UK, this decisive move could see thousands of lives saved each year.
 
It will be good to see that all young people in England will have been taught basic First Aid and CPR, including the use of defibrillators, (AED’s) by the time they leave secondary school.
 
Nigel Barraclough, a leading author of first aid training books said the following:
"  It is great to see that this landmark decision is now becoming a reality and thousands of secondary school pupils across the country will be trained in valuable life-saving CPR and First Aid. Norway has been teaching CPR in schools for many years and the increase in bystander CPR is the main reason that they have survival rates as high as 25% compared to the UK’s 10%. By providing school children with the opportunity to learn these valuable skills, is a significant step forward towards improving cardiac survival rates in the UK. "
We started trying to bring this to schools in North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire over two years ago without much success. Now a government decision has been made, progress could be made.
It is likely some secondary school children leaving school before 2020 will already have this information. However this is very much dependent on the school's priorities.
Contact us (01246 417377) to help to get these prospective life savers out there. Lives need to be saved and today's young people should be equipped with the skills they need to do this.