First aid and CPR to be taught in Gloucestershire schools

All children in Gloucestershire are going to learn CPR and basic first aid in school.

The compulsory lessons will be rolled out next year across England – so everyone leaves secondary school knowing how to save lives.

The plans have been welcomed by the British Heart Foundation.

The charity calls the move a “decisive moment in the battle to improve cardiac arrest survival rates”.

There are 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK every year and fewer than 10% of these people survive.

The survival rates double, however, in countries where CPR is taught in schools.

Now the government says that from 2020 learning those key skills should be mandatory for every pupil.

By the time they leave secondary school, children will have been taught how to administer CPR, the purpose of defibrillators, and basic treatments for common injuries.