Clwyd West Assembly Member Darren Millar is calling for First Aid training in schools in Conwy and Denbighshire after visiting British Red Cross in Abergele on Friday to mark Restart a Heart Day.

Restart a Heart is a designated day of action across Europe with the aim to teach vital life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills to as many people as possible.

During his visit, staff trained Darren on how to use an AED (Automatic Electronic Defibrillator).

Darren said:

“It was great to visit British Red Cross at Abergele and to be taught some life-saving skills.

“The Red Cross recently commissioned research that was carried out by the University of Manchester Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute which found that up to 59 per cent of deaths from injury may have been prevented had first aid been carried out before the arrival of the emergency medical services.

“A mapping exercise conducted by the British Red Cross, St John Cymru, and the British Heart Foundation shows that almost 40% of schools in Wales had received no training in lifesaving skills by any of the three organisations by March of this year. Worryingly, the areas with the lowest percentage of coverage included Conwy at 3%, Gwynedd at 3.6 % and Anglesey at 3.8%.

“It is crucial that life-saving skills form part of the new curriculum in Wales which is being developed to address these inconsistencies. Under the roll-out arrangements of the new curriculum, children from Year 8 and above will continue to receive an education based on the current curriculum. This means that they face a postcode lottery of learning how to save a life in an emergency. This is not acceptable.

“No one should die because they needed first aid and didn’t get it; Wales has the chance to train a generation of lifesavers in our schools and we should get on with it."