Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the predominant use of male CPR manikins in first aid training on survival outcomes for women experiencing cardiac arrest.

The Department is aware of research that shows differences in bystander response in providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to men versus women. Research also shows that training is key to improving bystander confidence in providing CPR to women and use of female manikins may assist in this.

NHS England has published a list of tools and resources on its website to improve cardiac arrest outcomes, with further information available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/clinical-policy/cvd/improving-outcomes-in-cardiac-arrest-tools-and-resources/

This includes guidance from St John’s Ambulance on How to do CPR and use a defibrillator on a person with breasts, which is available at the following link:

https://www.sja.org.uk/first-aid-advice/cpr-on-women-and-other-people-with-breasts/