HC Deb 19 November 2003 vol 413 cc808-12 2.17 pm
Bob Russell (Colchester)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require first aid training to be given to children in schools as part of the National Curriculum. The Bill would save many hundreds of lives every year, produce annual savings to the national health service of hundreds of millions of pounds and result in a better quality of life for all age groups throughout the land. It is a modest Bill with anything but a modest outcome: lives saved; money saved. Whatever the cost of providing first-aid training in schools, it would be petty cash compared with the huge financial dividend that would be generated for the public purse and it would save lives every day.

I acknowledge that teachers have a heavy work load and that many people in education feel that the national curriculum is already over-burdened. However, my Bill would not add to the burden of individual teachers unless they were already qualified first-ciders, because first-aid training would be undertaken by qualified first-aiders drawn from wider society, primarily volunteer members of St. John Ambulance and the Red Cross. I pay tribute to both organisations and to other voluntary groups that provide first-aid cover at a wide range of events, many of which would not take place if their organisers could not afford to buy in medical cover.

First-aid groups could do with more volunteers. Over time, my Bill would create a large pool of qualified first-aiders from which, it is hoped, many would become volunteers with St. John Ambulance and the Red Cross. In the short term, it is possible that there may be insufficient qualified first-aiders to train every child in school, so I realize that it may be necessary for the Bill's implementation to be phased, but the sooner the better in as many schools as it is possible to recruit qualified first-aiders to commence training.

My Bill sets out the framework. The precise details of implementation will emerge as a result of consultation with all the relevant bodies, including such considerations as what should be taught at what age group, the frequency of the training and so on. Today I am talking about the principle of the Bill.

I am grateful to St. John Ambulance, whose personnel have helped me to prepare my Bill. It believes that everyone should have life-saving skills, and it stresses that that could be achieved over time if everyone learned first aid at school. St. John says that currently fewer than 10 per cent. of schoolchildren in England are taught first aid—in many cases by teachers who have been trained by St. John, using materials provided by St. John Ambulance. That training, however, is purely at the discretion of the school and there is no obligation to provide first-aid training. My Bill would make it a requirement.

What I propose is not revolutionary. There are already aspects of the national curriculum in England that enable schools to teach first aid. St. John Ambulance's young lifesaver award links to the personal, social and health education syllabuses at both key stages 2 and 3, and to the citizenship syllabuses for key stages 3 and 4. The most direct link is probably with key stage 3, at which pupils should be taught basic emergency aid procedures and where to get help and support. That is better than nothing, but just think how much better it would be for all concerned if all children were taught first aid throughout their school years, starting as young as five, when they might learn how to react to a nosebleed, and continuing through to their early teens, when resuscitation could be accomplished.

The national healthy school standard says that, as a minimum, a school should provide opportunities for all pupils to develop health skills in relation to first aid. My Bill would take that concept forward and make it a requirement.

I am delighted to inform the House that in my constituency the Thomas Lord Audley school and language college has proposals, announced only last week, to establish a first aid club. Students would aim to get a recognised certificate from either the Red Cross or St. John Ambulance. It is felt that students will feel empowered, capable, confident, safety aware (especially when working in workshops)". It is also felt that the training would relate to existing curriculum subjects, ranging from modular science to food technology and from biology to physical education.

That school can see the wider benefits that first-aid training produces. If every school had first-aid training as part of the national curriculum, the benefits to the nation would be immense. Mr. Mark Allan of Colchester St. John Ambulance told me that first aid training gives young people life skills and confidence, making them better citizens".

St. John Ambulance nationally trains 250,000 people every year in first-aid skills. Free first-aid training has been offered to teachers in the past. Each year, a number of schools at primary and secondary levels participate in the St. John Ambulance national schools first aid competition. Thus the concept of first-aid training in schools is not new.

I opened my speech by saying that hundreds of deaths could be prevented each year if qualified first-aiders were able to intervene. St. John Ambulance goes further and says that thousands of deaths could be prevented. Indeed, research has shown that perhaps 1,000 people a year who currently die as a result of injuries sustained in road crashes would be saved if first aid were applied before the arrival of paramedics. It is considered that a significant proportion of the 300,000 people who die from heart attacks would have a much-increased chance of survival if first aid could be applied at an early stage.

Alongside the important saving of lives, first-aid training would also reduce visits to overstretched accident and emergency departments by people whose injuries did not warrant hospital attention, and likewise reduce visits to doctors' surgeries if a qualified first-aider could more easily and more quickly deal with such minor matters at home or at their place of work. A pack of frozen peas placed on a sprained ankle is more appropriate than sitting in an A and E department for hours—a fact confirmed to me by family doctor Chris Hall, the current mayor of Colchester.

St. John Ambulance has made the following statement: Apart from the obvious benefit of equipping children with lifesaving skills, first aid training in schools has other positive effects. The training promotes good citizenship. It also raises awareness of accident prevention issues as well as equipping pupils with the skills to be able to cope with accident and emergency situations should these arise, making the school environment a safer place and building confidence in young people. I would go further and say that first-aid training in schools from an early age would make children more aware of what makes their body work—what is good for it and what is bad for it. Obesity is a growing problem, literally, with the number of obese children increasing every year and more children suffering from diabetes as a consequence. Asthma is also on the increase. Today's young people are, collectively, less fit than their parents and grandparents were at the same age. For the first time in 100 years, we are looking at the prospect of falling life expectancy. A medical time-bomb is ticking away. Unless urgent action is taken, today's schoolchildren will suffer heart, mobility and breathing problems at an earlier age than is currently the case, throwing ever more burdens on the national health service.

If youngsters were involved in first-aid training as part of the national curriculum, it would make them more aware of the need for healthy food and healthy lifestyles. It would hopefully discourage involvement with illegal drugs, smoking and binge drinking. It would certainly lead to greater personal awareness—social inclusion would be achieved.

My Bill is all about saving lives and improving the lives of today's children. I commend it to the House.

12.25 pm
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst)

This is one of those occasions when a Bill sounds good and looks good and, as the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) is praying for it, how could one possibly resist it? Well, I will do my best, because I have been round this track many times in a former existence.

The school curriculum is a precious and valuable thing. It defines in broad terms the resources available to our schools and to our teachers, and it forces on us priorities in education, which is a very good thing. We are talking about deciding how we allocate chalk time, if I may put it that way, because there are so many demands on the time and skills of our schools and our teachers.

I hope it goes without saying that we all agree that the maximum priority should be given in classrooms to giving our young people the fundamentals of the skills that they will need for their lives and their jobs—reading, writing and numbers are the obvious ones. I hope that history, geography and physical education would still be included in that list. Once one gets any way beyond that basic list, one runs into real difficulties and challenges about the allocation of educational time. In fact, many would argue—I am probably one of them—that until we can demonstrate that every young person of school age has fully mastered those basic skills of reading, writing, numbers and communication, we should not allow ourselves to be tempted to bring in further such material to challenge them for school and classroom time, yet that is exactly what the hon. Gentleman's Bill seeks to do.

I have heard many claims made over many years for other matters to be imported into the curriculum, and many of them are indeed of great value. Environmental awareness, civics and road safety would all contribute very substantially to young people's lifestyles, and, indeed, life expectancy. I would add another one, which has some relevance to the hon. Gentleman's argument—safety in the home. He argued that many lives could be saved by the measures that he outlined. I doubt that. I would argue that as many lives could be saved if we taught safety in the home. Many deaths are caused by accidents in the home, which could be avoided and certainly reduced if we were to spend time in our schools and classrooms teaching young people about safety in the home.

This is not an uncompetitive business. At any time there are well-meaning people who argue, for very good reasons, that their subject should get priority within the national curriculum—that what they want to see imparted should be imparted to our young people in competition, because it inevitably is in competition, with the basics of reading, writing and number work. That is the first problem that we must resolve in our minds.

The next problem is a more practical one, and the hon. Gentleman, in fairness to him, was honest enough to admit it: whether we can identify a sufficient number of people within education to impart these skills to our school pupils. He generously conceded that that was not the case.

Again, one immediately runs into the problems of allocation and prioritisation because we would have to decide which age group, which class or, indeed, which school would get the benefit of what the hon. Gentleman claims before the others did so. He did not say how long it would take for the cumulative process for which he argued to come to fruition and to spread the benefits that he claimed for that type of education to all pupils.

I suppose that the next question that we have to ask ourselves is at what point does perhaps a very young person who has received an element of first-aid training become remotely competent to give emergency treatment to someone who is suffering in some way or another? I must say that I am nervous about the thought of young, partially trained people believing that they can do good to someone who is in medical difficulty, given the possibility, at the very least, that that could make things worse, not better. That must surely be a very distinct risk.

In an ideal world, if every pupil could be made fully competent in first aid, perhaps the outcome that the hon. Gentleman argued for might be achieved, but I am not sure that we could achieve that outcome, even if we had a complete set of qualified teachers and all the classroom and educational time in the world. My fear is that, if we fell short of that, there would be a danger of the Bill being harmful, rather than beneficial.

The hon. Gentleman said, rather charmingly, in a rather Liberal Democrat sort of way, that the details of all this will emerge. In other words, yet again, we are being asked to sign a Liberal Democrat blank cheque: "Let's legislate now, because it sounds good, and let's not worry about the details because someone else will fill them in." That is simply not good enough. An hon. Member cannot come to the House and say, "I've got a jolly good"—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal)

Order. Too much conversation is going on in the Chamber.

Mr. Forth

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your help, but I am usually up to it.

With such a complex matter, an hon. Member cannot simply say, "Here's a Bill. It sounds good. Sign up to it, and don't worry; we'll fill in the details later." That is simply not enough for a number of reasons, not least that it was not made at all clear whether gaining the alleged benefits of such education would be voluntary or compulsory. Even for the transitional phase—starting from when we have not enough qualified people, as the hon. Gentleman admitted, to some unspecified time in the future when we may—we were not told whether it would be voluntary or compulsory for our young people to learn such skills in the interim.

Nor was any mention made of the additional costs. Even if one were to assume that there would be no increase in the number of teachers or in the requirement for classrooms, what about the equipment and materials that would undoubtedly be required properly to impart such information to generations of young people? There must surely be a cost and a budget implication, but again—perhaps to no one's surprise—that was not mentioned at all.

The hon. Gentleman implied that just petty cash—I think that those were his words—would be involved and that, given the enormity of the education budget, if we merely slip in something else no one will notice. He should tell that to school governors, teachers and parents, because I am sure that they would need much more convincing than he has been able to impart today.

So, all in all, the Bill is well meaning—that is true—and its heart is in the right place, but I fear that, as with so many other such measures, it has been introduced simply in hope rather than expectation. If the House is to take such things seriously, I suggest that, if it wills the Bill, it should then find ways to will the means in terms not just of money, but of classroom time and educational priorities. That is the only responsible way in which one can approach such a Bill. I hope that the House will be responsible and that it will join me in saying—sadly, with regret—no to the Bill today.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Bob Russell, Mr. David Amess, Mrs. Annette L. Brooke, Sandra Gidley, Mr. Ivan Henderson, Lady Hermon, Kate Hoey, Mr. Alan Hurst, Mr. Andrew Rosindell, Mr. Simon Thomas, Dr. Jenny Tonge and Angela Watkinson.

FIRST AID TRAINING IN SCHOOLS

Bob Russell accordingly presented a Bill to require first aid training to be given to children in schools as part of the national curriculum: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 186].