Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps is she taking to ensure that CPR and defibrillator training is delivered consistently across schools in England.

All state-funded schools in England are required to teach first aid as part of the mandatory relationships, sex and health education curriculum. This includes basic first aid for primary school children, for example dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries. Pupils in secondary schools are taught further first aid, for example how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators and when one might be needed. Schools retain flexibility over how to deliver first aid teaching, including whether to use external organisations or practical demonstrations, provided teaching is age-appropriate and suitable for pupils.

The department’s defibrillator programme provided over 20,000 devices to eligible schools and was the largest distribution of defibrillators to date. Defibrillators are designed to be simple and safe to use. No prior training is required and they talk the user through step-by-step instructions at the point of use. As part of the rollout, the department provided awareness videos showing how simple defibrillators are to use and encouraged schools to share these in staff meetings and assemblies, where appropriate.

We continue to work with the British Heart Foundation to encourage schools to register their defibrillators on the national defibrillator network, The Circuit. This allows local ambulance services to see where defibrillators are, including any access arrangements. We are pleased to see that since the department’s rollout, the number of schools with at least one device registered on The Circuit has increased from 14% to 70%.

The department does not hold information on the accessibility of school defibrillators outside normal school hours. Schools are best placed to make decisions on access arrangements for their devices, based on individual circumstances.