Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the rollout of defibrillators in schools.

The department’s defibrillator programme has provided over 20,000 devices to schools, the largest rollout of defibrillators across England to date.

The department is working with the British Heart Foundation to understand the impact the programme is having. Since the rollout, the number of school defibrillators registered on the British Heart Foundation’s national defibrillator database, The Circuit, has risen by 252%, with 66% of all schools in England now having registered at least one device. Our evaluation shows that defibrillators provided by the department have been available for use and deployed in over 12,000 emergency situations, where there has been a suspected cardiac arrest.

In January 2025, the British Heart Foundation published Barry’s story. Barry’s life was saved by a school defibrillator provided by the department. More information can be found at: https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/defibrillators/stories/barry-on-being-saved-by-local-school#:~:text=Barry%20had%20popped%20into%20his,road%2C%20his%20life%20was%20saved.

We continue to work with the British Heart Foundation to evaluate and understand the impact of the department’s programme and support schools in registering their defibrillators on The Circuit.