Defib Machine’s meeting with the Shadow Foreign Secretary

On Friday 18 March 2015 we were pleased to have the opportunity to raise with the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP the increasing need for the entire school community to be familiar with the use of defibrillators. The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP is calling for more familiarity for the use of defibrillators in schools. Defib Machines specialise in supplying Defib Machines for the education sector and we had the pleasure of meeting him.

Should children be taught how to use Defib Machines?

The AED Guide for Schools, issued by the DoE in October last year raises the issue in saying that in order to meet statutory obligations, it should be sufficient to circulate the manual to all staff and provide a short briefing session; but that schools may want to use this briefing to raise awareness generally across the entire school community.  Furthermore the Guide says that one way in which this might be done is during PSHE lessons, which all schools should provide.

Our view is that making school children familiar with the use of automatic defib machines will allow them to have confidence in their use, should the need arise in an emergency throughout their lives. We expressed the view that it was regrettable that the Private Members Bill that sought to bring this into law last October was, “talked out” and thereby failed to make it onto the statute books.

Mr Benn listened receptively to our lobbying and whilst he rightly said that headteachers already have significant directions on matters to be included in the curriculum, he did acknowledge that there was nothing more important than saving lives.  He also pondered that this could be achieved during PSHE lessons and we agree that this would indeed be the way forward.

Read our guide helping you to understand the defibrillator cost.

Contact Defib Machines

Defib Machines provide AED machines for schools and other educational institutions. For more information on how to get a Defib Machine installed in your educational institution, be it a school, college or university, get in touch with a member of our team on 0800 0852 733, leave your details on our contact us page and we’ll reply as soon as possible or email at solutions@defibmachines.co.uk.