North East charity urging government to teach CPR training through driving licence tests
A resuscitation charity is calling on the government to join nearly half of countries in Europe who teach CPR training through the driving tests
A resuscitation charity is urging the government to teach CPR training through driving licence tests across the North East and UK.
A new report by the Resuscitation Council UK has found that CPR training disparities based on deprivation, a person’s ethnicity, or cultural background are putting thousands of lives at risk.
Sergio Petrucci, founder of the Red Sky Foundation, said: "Teaching CPR through driving licence tests is a great idea. It's another avenue and another stream where people can actually be educated on learning CPR.
"Ultimately they can gain those skills that are required to save a life."
He continued to say: "It will have a massive impact, as the more people who will learn CPR, the more benefits it will have on saving someone's life in the event of a sudden cardiac arrest."
The report compiles important evidence of UK research on inequalities in resuscitation, and shows the huge disparities between rich and poor, and people from different cultural backgrounds, when facing the ultimate medical emergency.
Early defibrillation can more than double survival rates, yet defibs are lacking in areas where people from ethnic minority backgrounds live – over half (56%) of these areas have no defibs in comparison to 31% of areas where predominantly white British people live. They’re also lacking in the most deprived parts of the UK - almost half (44%) have no defibrillator registered on The Circuit, the national defibrillator network.
Many people from ethnic minority backgrounds across the UK are also facing disparities to accessing CPR training - Just 22% received training in the last ten years, compared with 41% of the UK population in the same period. Nearly a third (32%) said they have had first or second-hand experience of cardiac arrest, yet six in ten (59%) said they lacked the knowledge and skills to perform CPR.
60% said they have never been trained in using a defibrillator, and a third mentioned a lack of awareness of training opportunities.
The study also found that seven in ten people from ethnic minority backgrounds didn’t know where their nearest defib was - this is in contrast to the wider UK population where six in ten did know.
The report - which is being launched today (Thursday 25th April) at the Houses of Parliament to key decision makers, partners and cardiac arrest survivors - gives key recommendations on how to close the inequalities gap that currently exists when someone has a cardiac arrest.
One of the recommendations is that the UK should join nearly half of the countries in Europe, who teach CPR training through the driving licence test, so that people who are less likely to receive training in the workplace – those who work in manual and ‘unskilled’ jobs - are guaranteed lifesaving skills via an alternative route. With over half (67%) of drivers in manual or ‘unskilled’ jobs depend on a private vehicle for transport to work.