Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of access to defibrillators in (a) Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard constituency, (b) Central Bedfordshire and (c) the UK.

No assessment has been made on the adequacy of access to Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in the Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard constituency, Central Bedfordshire, or the United Kingdom as a whole. However, the Government is committed to improving access to AEDs in public spaces, and reducing inequalities in access to these life saving devices. We have made a further £500,000 available to fulfil existing applications to the Department’s Community AED Fund, launched in September 2023. The criteria specified for the original grant continues to apply and will go to applications for AEDs in areas where there is the greatest need, including in areas of high footfall, hot spots for cardiac arrest, and areas that already have low access to AEDs.