PUPILS in secondary schools across Lanarkshire are to become the latest be taught life-saving skills as part of the curriculum.
Officials from South Lanarkshire Council will this week be asked to approve the move as part of a drive to improve wider health and save lives. North Lanarkshire Council is set to agree an expansion its current provision at a meeting next week.
Last summer, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) invited councils across the country to introduce cardiopulmonary resuscitation training in secondary schools. More than two thirds of Scotland’s councils have now signed up.
A report to South Lanarkshire Council’s education committee states: “A key priority ... is to support young people to develop their skills for learning, life and work.
“The aim is to offer the opportunity of CPR training to all pupils during their learning journey through school.
“The majority of schools have selected a single year group to target each year, allowing all pupils the opportunity to access training at some point during their secondary school experience.”
Under the project, all schools will be updated with information from the BHF on the benefits of CPR, how to develop positive lifestyles, helping others and being aware of what to do in an emergency.
The report adds: “This programme recognises that heart disease is a prevalent issue across all of our communities and across Scotland as a whole.
“The programme provides an opportunity to develop awareness and skills in pupils relating to health and wellbeing in a very practical way, and in a way that might save lives at some point in the future.”
According to the BHF, fewer than one in ten people who have a cardiac arrest outside a hospital currently survive.
In countries where CPR is more widely taught, survival rates as high as one in four have been reported.
International evidence has shown that in countries like Denmark, which legislated for all secondary pupils to learn CPR, survival rates for out of hospital cardiac arrests tripled.
The BHF said: “Having CPR taught in school can help create a nation of lifesavers.”
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