Teaching young people how to carry out cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) could help to save thousands of lives every year. At the moment only eight per cent of patients survive a cardiac arrest in England and less than half of bystanders intervene if they see someone collapse.
The advice features in a new report, entitled Resuscitation to Recovery, which was published by the British Heart Foundation last week.
Supported by two of NHS England’s national clinical directors, the report aims to encourage greater awareness among the general public of recognising a cardiac arrest and knowing how to perform CPR. It emphasises that bystander invention can help to treble the chances of survival and says that by the time every young person in the UK leaves school they should know how to save a life.
“By learning these skills, bystanders become life-savers,” the report adds. “Young people could save the life of their mum, dad or friend if they have an out of hospital cardiac arrest.”
The Department for Education has acknowledged the advantage of promoting these skills in schools but unlike some other countries training young people of school age in CPR is not compulsory here.
The British Heart Foundation’s Call Push Rescue programme gives UK secondary schools free CPR training kits, enabling teachers, leaders and volunteers to lead training sessions.
“Cardiac arrest survival rates in England are disappointingly low and have remained so for many years,” said Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, the BHF’s medical director.
“There is potential to save thousands of lives but we urgently need to change how we think about cardiac arrest care. It’s clear that we need a revolution in CPR by educating more people in simple lifesaving skills and the use of external defibrillators.”
- The report Resuscitation to Recovery can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/2mZMEHOO