Every Child To Be Taught CPR And Basic First Aid Skills At School

Jan 17, 2019 by apost team

Starting in 2020, UK schools will begin teaching students CPR, basic first aid, defibrillator uses, and the fundamentals of common injuries. These skills will be mandatory by the time pupils leave secondary school. What prompted this move by the UK government? Will it make a difference?

The British Heart Foundation is a staunch supporter of the move to include CPR lessons in the health programs offered by secondary schools. Representatives called the government’s decision “decisive” against the battle to better survival rates of cardiac arrest and improve outcomes.

Education Secretary Damian Hinds explains the decision to add first aid and CPR to existing health-based curriculums like sex education and relationship education, saying that such subjects are “crucial” to ensuring children have the broad base of skills necessary to flourish in our modern world. Hinds also says that knowledge of first aid and CPR can give children the “confidence” to step in to help others in need and possibly save a life.

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The goal is to provide students with four key areas of knowledge by the time they leave school:

• CPR
• Knowledge on the purpose of a defibrillator
• Knowledge of common injuries
• Basic first aid
• While the above will become compulsory by 2020, the government says it’s ready to support any schools wanting to get a jump start and begin in 2019.

As it is in many other countries, coronary heart disease is Britain’s number one killer. According to the BBC, around 74,000 people die each year in the UK from heart disease, and it’s been estimated by the Department of Health that some 30,000 are completely avoidable deaths. Sky News reports a 10 percent survival rate amongst the 30,000 Brits who go into cardiac arrest outside a hospital each year.

Countless studies from around the world surrounding CPR, whether that be concerning its general effectiveness or studies showing the difference between specific populations with and without widespread training, have shown that CPR saves lives. Public awareness programs have thus been aimed at hammering this fact into the public perception of CPR since research has shown that belief emphasis impacts training being a) sought and then b) promptly utilized.

However, research has also shown that there are three major barriers to community-based approaches to educating willing adults:

• Financial
• Motivational
• Informational

Most adults complain that they never use most of what they’re taught during public education years. Indeed, most will never have a time where real life hinges upon knowing how many wives Henry VIII had, that the shortest war against England was Zanzibar in 1896, nor knowing all the elements on the periodic table.

There’s long been a call for the inclusion of more practical education, right? Well, it doesn’t get more practical than life-saving CPR and first aid skills. Plus, initiating CPR education early through secondary school removes the financial, motivational, and informational barriers that most adults face in seeking voluntary CPR training. In fact, research concerning countries in which children were taught CPR within school systems show that cardiac arrest survival rates doubled in the areas.

What do you think about the UK’s move to include CPR in secondary school health education programs? Does your area school(s) include CPR training? Leave us a comment telling us your thoughts and opinions, and always feel free to pass this article along to anyone that might be touched by its content.