Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to encourage schools to teach (a) CPR and (b) other life-saving methods.

Edward Timpson

All schools are required to teach a balanced and broadly based curriculum that prepares them for adult life. The new national curriculum focuses on the essential knowledge so that teachers can design a wider school curriculum that best meets the needs of their pupils.

Many schools already choose to include CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and defibrillator awareness as part of their PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) teaching. The non-statutory PSHE Programme of Study produced by the PSHE Association, teaches young people how to recognise and follow health and safety procedures, ways of reducing risk and minimising harm in risky situations, and how to use emergency and basic first aid.

Many schools also make use of organisations such as the Red Cross and St John Ambulance, to provide information to young people about first aid and dealing with emergencies.The British Heart Foundation has offered to provide free CPR training kits to every secondary school in the country, allowing young people to gain first-hand experience of this important life-saving skill. We have promoted this kit to schools through the all schools termly email and social media channels and we expect many schools to take up this offer.