CPR Education in Schools?

Proactive parenting by Sheila and Roy Poulton led to their son, David, undertaking the Royal Life Saving Society Bronze and Pool Bronze Medallions and the Award of Merit qualifications in his final years of schooling. Service for ten years in the Royal Navy, and subsequent careers required qualification in First Aid and CPR. David has always felt able to deal with a crisis, going on to become first a Paramedic, then a Senior Clinical Tutor in an NHS Ambulance Service.

“What frustrates any Paramedic, or frontline Ambulance Staff member, is arriving at a cardiac arrest to find that no-one has started resuscitation, despite the emergency operator prompting and giving instructions.”

Britain is a multicultural society with varying comprehension of the English language, and it may be only the children of the family that have knowledge of the language, so in some cases it is the child who is communicating with the emergency services and carrying out life saving interventions or translating for another family member in an extremely stressful situation.

Knowledge of the basics of First Aid in a child of school age can only help in these situations, and when learned in a key skills environment, developed through to adulthood, the chances of retention of this vital information are multiplied, not only in these groups, but for any child.

This drive toward early teaching of CPR on a national basis is supported by a recent study in Denmark, where, since 2005 the government have been educating their population, including children in elementary schools, in CPR skills.

The results spoke for themselves. Quoting from a USA Today article in October of this year:

“In Denmark, the number of cardiac arrest victims who received “bystander” CPR — from someone other than a health professional — more than doubled, from 22% in 2001 to 45% in 2010.

In the same time period, the percentage of cardiac arrest victims who arrived at a hospital alive increased from 8% to 22%.

The percentage of patients alive after 30 days tripled, growing from 3.5% to 11%. The percentage of patients alive after one year also more than tripled, from 3% in 2001 to 10% in 2010.”

Whilst it appears that the new curriculum did not reflect these skills when published, we can only keep up the drive to support their adoption into our education system, despite clearly fitting into the key skills stages of education. Some schools, when approached to discuss AED placement and CPR education, simply replied that children do not have heart attacks! We know that this isn’t strictly true… and what about the staff?! Others cited costs of equipment and training as reasons that they would not consider adoption into their curriculum

Dave is now a Director of HDP Education Solutions Ltd, delivering bespoke education programmes to his clients, whether on a professional or personal basis, and is passionate about ensuring that people know what to do on what may be the worst day of their lives for good reason. His dad, Roy, passed away in 2004, the week before Dave joined the Ambulance Service, and was at work away from home. His mother and uncle carried out CPR as instructed by the operator, but to no avail. Neither of them had prior knowledge of the skills to be able to carry out CPR.

He tells us, “Everyone should have the knowledge to give the most precious gift of all, the gift of life. By ensuring early education and further development, maybe following the Danish example, requiring new drivers to pass a First Aid qualification prior to being awarded a driving licence, we can cut down the number of unnecessary deaths that occur every day.”