Automatic External Defibrillators
The final item of business today is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-06362, in the name of Margaret Mitchell, on automatic external defibrillators in Scotland. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament acknowledges the ongoing AEDs in Scotland campaign, which aims to have automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) placed in strategic locations, such as rural communities, where it is difficult for an ambulance to respond quickly, or areas where there is a high incidence of cardiac arrest and in public buildings such as cinemas and supermarkets; believes that sudden cardiac arrest is a treatable condition whereby the body “short circuits”, interrupting the heart’s regular rhythm and keeping it from pumping blood through the body; further believes that, for every minute that passes without defibrillation, the chances of survival decrease by 14% and that research shows that applying a controlled shock using an AED within five minutes of collapse provides the best possible chance of survival; understands that AEDs, which are of simple design and can therefore be used without specialist training, can help to stop the heart’s arrhythmia, allowing the heart to re-establish an effective rhythm, but that CPR should also be administered; believes that 12 young people die in the UK each week as a result of a sudden changes in cardiac rhythm, but that only 10% of UK schools currently have AEDs; further understands that North Lanarkshire Council has recently purchased 25 defibrillators, one for each of its secondary schools, but that in March 2013 Samantha Clinton from Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, started a petition as part of Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS) UK’s Big Shock Campaign to have a defibrillator placed in every school in the local authority area; notes that, in order to raise awareness, Samantha has designed colouring sheets for primary school children to take home to their parents with information about sudden cardiac arrest and a copy of the petition; is of the view that AEDs save lives and triple the chances of surviving a sudden cardiac arrest, and notes calls for AEDs to be located in all schools across Scotland as well as in public places and remote locations.
17:04
The campaign for AEDs, or automatic external defibrillators, in Scotland is run by first-aiders Laura and Paul Macadam-Slater, who briefed MSPs about the issue when they visited Parliament last month. AEDs are machines that deliver an electronic shock to the heart in cases of cardiac arrest, when the heart stops pumping blood. To realise the full significance of that, suffice it to say that the survival chances of people who are affected by cardiac arrest decrease—
Excuse me, Mrs Mitchell. Could I stop you for a moment? People who are leaving the gallery should do so quietly. Parliament is in session.
The survival chances of people who are affected by cardiac arrest decrease by 14 per cent for every minute without defibrillation. Furthermore, 70 per cent of sudden cardiac arrests occur outside hospital. Of those, only one person in 20 currently survives and death from sudden cardiac arrest can occur within 10 minutes.
In the United Kingdom, an estimated 4,000 people a year die from SADS—sudden arrhythmic death syndrome—which is a genetic heart-rhythm abnormality. In Scotland, cardiovascular disease, or CVD, is the main cause of deaths. There were 17,000 deaths from CVD in 2010, which equates to almost a third of all deaths in Scotland that year. It is worrying that 50 per cent of the people who require defibrillation do not have a previously diagnosed heart condition, and that many of those individuals will be young and seemingly healthy.
The campaign therefore calls for AEDs to be placed in public places, in remote communities and in all fire and police vehicles in Scotland, and in other strategic locations, because cardiac arrests are, by nature, unexpected and sudden. One relatively recent high-profile case involved the collapse of Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba on the pitch during an FA cup match in 2012. Television footage that is now part of a British Heart Foundation advertising campaign shows the shock and distress that registered on the faces of the other players as they watch the previously fit and healthy 20-year-old lying motionless and face down on the pitch. Although he was technically dead for 78 minutes, Fabrice survived, partly thanks to the use of a defibrillator.
The Isle of Man already has a number of AEDs, and a local Manx charity, Craig’s Heartstrong Foundation, aims to raise £60,000 in 2013 to equip all 34 primary schools on the island with lifesaving AEDs and training from St John Ambulance. Craig’s Heartstrong Foundation was established by the Lunt family in memory of their 25-year-old son Craig, who was a popular young footballer who tragically died as a result of previously undiagnosed heart defects.
AEDs that are located in Scotland include one here in Parliament, and a number that have been donated by the British Heart Foundation which has, by working in partnership with the Scottish Ambulance Service and Scotmid, succeeded in placing 40 AEDs in Scotmid stores. In 2009, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport bought AEDs for six of its subway stations and plans to extend that provision to all 15 subway stations. SPT also intends to place AEDs in East Kilbride, Greenock and Hamilton bus stations.
It is not just the efforts of big organisations that have seen AEDs being placed. For evidence of that, we need look no further than the small village of Collieston, where the community raised nearly £3,000 to fund and install a defibrillator in the village. However, there are still far fewer AEDs in Scotland than there should be, hence the call from the AEDs in Scotland campaign and the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health for AEDs to be placed strategically in public and remote places.
According to a recent online discussion that was hosted by the Scottish Ambulance Service, which asked members of the public where they would like AEDs to be placed, the following locations were cited and suggested: public places, especially where large numbers of people gather; remote communities, where it can take an ambulance much precious time to arrive; village halls; old phone boxes; places that are accessible 24 hours a day; and schools.
Given that, alarmingly, each week 12—potentially more—young people die from SADS in the UK, the argument in favour of placing AEDs in schools is compelling. In March, as part of the SADS campaign, Samantha Clinton from Bellshill started a petition calling for all schools to have AEDs; in the light of that, the joint decision by North Lanarkshire Council and NHS Lanarkshire to provide an AED in each of its 24 secondary schools is very much to be welcomed and it is hoped that more local authorities and NHS boards throughout Scotland will follow their example.
However, as more AEDs are placed in our communities, they must be mapped to ensure that, should one be required, its location is known. All the AEDs on the Isle of Man have to be registered at the emergency services joint control room, which handles all 999 calls, to allow people to be directed to the nearest defibrillator. That is particularly useful as it helps to identify AEDs in private locations such as office buildings that can be accessed by the public in an emergency, as well as those that are provided in cabinets. To ensure that the locations of defibrillators are known, the AEDs in Scotland campaign has undertaken its own mapping scheme. So far, it has found 104 AEDs in Scotland, but only 29 that are accessible 24 hours a day. The Scottish Ambulance Service believes that there are 327 AEDs in total, but it does not know where they are all located.
Despite people’s apprehension, defibrillators are, in fact, very easy to use; once it is switched on, the AED guides the operator through the procedure using a computer-generated voice. Once it is connected, the AED automatically analyses the victim’s heart rhythm and delivers the shock only when it detects the presence of a rhythm that requires defibrillation. It also gives the operator guidance on when to begin and stop chest compression. As a result, anyone who is involved in an emergency can be confident that they will be able to use the AED safely and correctly.
In conclusion, the fact that AEDs can save and have saved lives is the reason why campaigns such as the one that is being run by Laura and Paul Macadam-Slater are to be welcomed and supported in seeking to have more of these important machines located across Scotland, to raise awareness of sudden cardiac events and, crucially, to explain the action that is required.
I very much look forward to the minister’s comments on this important issue.
Thank you very much. I apologise for the earlier interruption.
I ask for four-minute speeches, as we are quite tight for time.
17:12
First, I congratulate Margaret Mitchell on securing the debate. I must also give my apologies, as I will have to leave the chamber before the minister responds to attend to an urgent constituency matter.
I attended Laura and Paul Macadam-Slater’s recent presentation to MSPs, which made a very good case for making life-saving public AEDs more widely available across Scotland, and I very much support what they are trying to achieve. Members will have reflected on the statistics, but they are worth repeating. For the 70 per cent of sudden cardiac arrests that occur outside a hospital environment, there is about a one in 20 chance of survival. I was very struck by that statistic; I was not aware of it before and it has certainly made me think.
Although sudden cardiac arrests are clearly very dangerous, they are treatable, and defibrillation is the accepted method of treatment. Chances of survival dramatically increase if defibrillation is delivered quickly but decrease equally dramatically with every minute that treatment is delayed. Given that, as Margaret Mitchell pointed out, AEDs are easy to use—indeed, they can be used by someone with no medical training at all—the argument seems clear that the provision of AEDs in public places might very well make a significant difference.
As for international comparisons, some countries have had a comprehensive roll-out of publicly available AEDs, while others are at various stages of development. Hong Kong, for example, is rolling out 300 AEDs in public locations, but the lion’s share of the plaudits must go to New Zealand, which, with a population similar to Scotland’s, has 2,941 publicly available AEDs and a fantastic online interactive map that shows people exactly where they are.
For me, that is particularly instructive. Many AEDs are located in health centres, hospitals and fire stations, where we might expect them to be, but there are also many in private businesses, residential addresses, dental surgeries and even boats, all of which are registered online and visible on the map.
Margaret Mitchell’s motion refers to rural areas in particular. In Dumfries and Galloway, some moves have already been made by individual communities towards the wider provision of AEDs. Some community councils have used community benefit money from wind farms to purchase defibrillators, which are available in public buildings such as village halls and shops.
Other communities are participating in the Scottish Ambulance Service’s volunteer first responders scheme. As well as basic first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation—CPR—training, an AED is a crucial part of a first responder’s equipment. Although such AEDs are not publicly available, they are ultra-local and can cut response times dramatically. First responders teams are established and running in a number of Galloway’s remoter communities. It is by no means very remote, but Dalbeattie is setting up a group that will provide an out-of-hours first responders service to almost 5,000 people. All that activity is welcome, but it relies, of course, on individuals and groups recognising the importance of the issue and being prepared to act.
In closing, I will mention training and awareness. Conversations with the British Heart Foundation have established that a good number of Dumfries and Galloway’s secondary schools and some of its primary schools have had heartstart training. To complete the equation, we need the equipment—that is for sure—but also public awareness.
I am very pleased that we are having the debate and highlighting the issue. I am particularly grateful to Margaret Mitchell for securing the debate. I wish Laura and Paul Macadam-Slater every success with their campaign, and I hope that, in time, we will see many more publicly available AEDs across Scotland. I also commend the efforts of North Lanarkshire Council.
17:17
I congratulate Margaret Mitchell on lodging this important motion and I look forward to the rest of the debate, including the minister’s speech, because the last statement of the Scottish Government’s position on the matter that I can see is in the “Better Heart Disease and Stroke Care Action Plan” from 2009, which said that boards have to follow the advice of cardiac managed clinical networks on defibrillators. I do not know what advice was given to different boards, so I look forward to an update.
The action plan was interesting in presenting the evidence that existed on the matter. It referred to an evaluation of the scheme in England, which was really ahead of us at that time. That evidence suggested that AEDs were very effective in busy public places, and it looked as if there were also promising results for community first responders. That was clearly very important for Scotland, because many areas of Scotland rely on community first responders. I hope that AEDs are available to them.
Another dimension to all this in Scotland is the rural issue, which the motion refers to. I was interested to read about the AEDs in Scotland campaign, which is based in Fort William. Other campaigns are mentioned in the motion, and I will refer to them in a moment, but that campaign has argued for AEDs to be readily available in public places in communities where ambulances cannot reach someone with a cardiac arrest within five minutes of the 999 call, and for AEDs to be carried in all police and fire service vehicles.
A map of availability, to which Margaret Mitchell referred in general terms, is shown on the AEDs in Scotland website and the online AED locator. It indicates that the majority of the devices are already kept in more remote locations. However, as members will realise, the reaction time of the emergency services might not be delayed simply as a result of geography; towns with a high population density or compromised road networks might also have slower responses. That is why further investment in urban areas is also essential.
The motion draws attention to the issue of young people who become victims of SADS—I say “SADS” for the sake of speed; everyone knows what it means because of Margaret Mitchell’s speech. As the AEDs in Scotland campaign highlights, the majority of the people affected by the condition are between the ages of 12 and 35, but children as young as six years old have been victims of it.
We need to examine the case for having defibrillators for use in the education environment. The motion rightly points to the great work done by individuals such as Samantha Clinton and to her involvement with the big shock campaign in raising awareness of cardiac arrest in young people among young people and their parents.
The recent news that North Lanarkshire Council will install a defibrillator in every secondary school is indeed welcome. The initiative is part of the British Heart Foundation’s heartstart schools programme, which aims to teach all students in Scotland basic life-saving skills by 2015. As we have heard, all 24 secondary schools in North Lanarkshire will be fitted with the machines before the end of March 2014, to ensure that any incident in which a schoolchild or employee suffers from cardiac failure will be met with a timely response until medical help is sought.
The heartstart programme is particularly useful as it allows young people to recognise the early signs of an oncoming cardiac arrest, such as dizziness and chest pains, and teaches them to respond in a calm and responsible manner or take appropriate action if they require help. It is important to widen the debate to that more general campaign, because clearly it is a matter of not just AEDs but emergency life support more generally, which the British Heart Foundation campaign highlights.
I believe that the Government has awarded £110,000 for a fund to develop sustainable models to create increased provision of emergency life-support training in secondary schools more generally by working with designated local authorities. I would welcome more information about that, because I have not read any more about it, apart from the generality.
I must ask you to conclude.
I ought to add that part of the training is about CPR, which might also be required. That wider education of young people is crucial, but having the devices in schools is clearly an important part of that.
17:21
I, too, congratulate my colleague Margaret Mitchell on securing the debate so that we can acknowledge the work of the AEDs in Scotland campaign, which seeks to extend the availability of automatic external defibrillators in schools and public places and in remote areas, where it is difficult for an ambulance to respond quickly.
It is a sobering thought that 12 young people still die each week in the UK from sudden cardiac arrhythmia, usually ventricular fibrillation, which can kill within minutes in the absence of a defibrillator and effective CPR. Most of those victims are very fit young people and often skilled athletes.
Cardiac arrest can of course occur in all age groups or as the result of an accident. It is important that as many people as possible know how to deal appropriately with such a serious emergency. In the old days when I was a young doctor, defibrillators were scary pieces of equipment and quite difficult to use safely and effectively. Now, however, the modern automatic external defibrillators are very user-friendly and quite easy for members of the public to operate.
Sudden death in young people from cardiac arrhythmia was brought to my attention very soon after I became an MSP 10 years ago by the redoubtable Wilma Gunn from Selkirk, who lost her son from that cause. She asked me and several other MSPs to be a patron of her charity, Scottish Heart at Risk Testing, for which she campaigned tirelessly. Scottish HART had the twin purposes of seeking cardiac screening for all young people taking part in strenuous sport and of raising funds to put defibrillators in strategic places such as football grounds and sports stadia. I do not know how many such machines Scottish HART funded, but there were many, not least in the Dons home ground of Pittodrie, in Aberdeen.
I remember facilitating a meeting in St Andrew’s house with Malcolm Chisholm, when he was a health minister, civil servants, Wilma Gunn and Professor Hillis from Glasgow, an expert in sudden cardiac arrest, to discuss the feasibility of screening young people who might be at risk. The perceived wisdom at the time was that large-scale screening was not appropriate, but things moved on. I believe that such screening is now available for young athletes, but the minister might be able to correct me if I am wrong on that.
It is important to raise awareness of the possibility of sudden cardiac arrest and what can be done to save the lives of those who fall victim to it. Widespread distribution of AEDs is needed, together with, as has been pointed out, educating people from an early age in how to recognise cardiac arrest, how to do CPR and how to use an AED.
Samantha Clinton is to be congratulated on her efforts to have a defibrillator placed in every school in her local authority area and on designing colouring sheets for local primary school pupils that are aimed at teaching parents about sudden cardiac arrest. I am sure that her work could be used as a template for other council areas and would help to spread the word about how to recognise and cope with a potentially fatal cardiac collapse.
I thank Margaret Mitchell again for highlighting the excellent work in her region and other parts of Scotland, and I look forward to hearing the minister’s response to the debate.
17:25
I am sure that it is a great relief to members that the Minister for Public Health is here to respond to the debate. As I recall, he was a member of Scotland’s emergency services when he was a member of a mountain rescue team. I am sure that he is more than adequately trained, should any of us require first responder intervention.
This is an excellent and opportune debate. The motion is comprehensive and covers many of the bases. The key underlying point is that early intervention dramatically improves the likelihood of a good outcome in the long term.
Nanette Milne and Malcolm Chisholm talked about the related intervention of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. We should say a little more about that, because as anyone will know who has been trained to do CPR, as I have—albeit that I must be incredibly rusty now—it is easy to watch and difficult to do. A person must have the confidence to put their full weight into CPR as they press on the chest of the person who is suffering a heart attack. They must be prepared to break ribs, if that is what it takes. In older people, that can be a consequence.
In light of that, we must consider the practical training that is given to people if they are to administer CPR. It is not a question of having a bit of paper that tells one how to do it; people need to realise that it needs a lot of physical effort. I hope that we tak tent of that. I am sure that Laura and Paul Macadam-Slater, who are trained first-aiders, are familiar with the issue, which is partly why CPR is mentioned in the motion.
There are other, simple things that people should be trained to do at school. For example, youngsters should know how to get someone into the recovery position. Such an intervention can be decisive in ensuring a person’s survival, given that vomiting can be associated with a heart attack and someone who is in the wrong position can drown in their own vomit. People should be taught the recovery position.
I represent many of Scotland’s fishermen. These days, a large proportion of fishing boats carry AEDs, which are vastly easier to use than the kind of equipment that Dr Milne used, which came in some time after my father graduated in medicine.
There is a small personal element to this debate. In 1930, long before I was born, my grandfather had a heart attack on what was then the lower station in Dunfermline, and that was the end of him. I would like to think that if that had happened today, CPR or intervention via an AED would have meant that he could have lived beyond his 68 years.
I hope that the debate stimulates wider interest and that we hear interesting things from the minister. I also hope that the minister will not have to make a personal intervention and use his previous training.
17:29
I congratulate Margaret Mitchell on bringing the debate to the Parliament.
I have spoken in the Parliament about the use of AEDs in Scotland, so I welcome the opportunity to make a small contribution to the debate. When I spoke in November 2011 in my members’ business debate on the heartstart campaign that was being run by the British Heart Foundation and North Lanarkshire Council, I talked about the need to introduce emergency life-support training in schools throughout Scotland. I asked whether we could afford not to do such a thing. Since 2011, a number of schools have taken part in the training. However, it is still not a universal service throughout Scotland. The curriculum for excellence provides schools with the opportunity to add that training to the school day, but I would encourage the Scottish Government to do more in that regard so that, from now on, no pupil goes without ELS training.
During that debate, I spoke about the heartstart campaign that is run by North Lanarkshire Council and led by the healthy lifestyle co-ordinator, Charles Fawcett. I told the chamber that a pilot was being run at St Ambrose high school in Coatbridge to better educate staff and pupils in the use of defibrillators. At that time, defibrillators—or AEDs—were not an integral part of the school building. That is why I was delighted to learn that North Lanarkshire Council had installed AEDs in all its 24 secondary schools—the first local authority in Scotland to do so. The cost of that initiative is £70,000. As we have heard, it is partly funded by North Lanarkshire Council, NHS Lanarkshire and Amey. The cost is nothing in comparison to the value that we get from a generation of life-savers in our communities.
For every minute that passes without defibrillation in the aftermath of a cardiac arrest, the chances of survival decrease by 14 per cent. It is therefore essential that AEDs become more widely available. Ideally, they would be held in all public buildings, along transport routes, in private gyms and in all workplaces. I know that I am not alone in calling for those measures. Other members have mentioned that tonight and organisations such as the British Heart Foundation and AEDs in Scotland have also called for action. I hope that, in his closing speech, the minister will be able to commit to action on the matter.
I have recently had the opportunity to attend two heartstart ELS training sessions in Lanarkshire. Those sessions were carried out by a volunteer from St Andrew’s First Aid. One session was given to young carers. I do not have to explain to members how vital that session was to those young people. The other session was given to teachers in order to train them in the use of the new AEDs. Those are essential sessions, which I have found invaluable. As members know, due to my disability, I have the use of only one hand. As a result, I have always shied away from going forward for a first aid course. However, from those sessions I now know some basic first aid. More important, I know that I can use AEDs very easily—far more easily than heart compressions. Without the education that programmes such as that offer, many of us would not be able to help if called on in an emergency. I therefore call on the minister to establish a programme of such training across Scotland.
I congratulate North Lanarkshire Council and Charles Fawcett on the initiatives that they have introduced. I congratulate the heartstart campaign on providing ELS training throughout schools in Scotland and I congratulate Margaret Mitchell again on bringing the debate to the Parliament. I hope that AEDs will be in all our schools the next time we debate this important issue.
17:33
I, too, thank Margaret Mitchell for bringing the debate to the Parliament. In following Siobhan McMahon, I remember her members’ business debate in November 2011, and I remember speaking about a charity that is very close to my heart, which I will speak about again today. That charity, Lucky2BHere, was established in Skye in 2007 by a friend of mine, Ross Cowie, when he had just suffered an almost fatal cardiac arrest. As a result of its fundraising, nearly 30 defibrillators have been put in since 2007, especially in the Highlands and Islands but also in the central belt. An important point is that Lucky2BHere not only raises funds and puts defibrillators in public spaces; it always gives training, too. When a community says that it wants a defibrillator, it joins up with heartstart and everybody is trained to use a defibrillator.
Siobhan McMahon talked about the British Heart Foundation’s work on ELS in schools. I loved her description of “a generation of life-savers”. That is very fitting, and it is what we should be working towards.
I was delighted last year at the Scottish National Party conference when not only Alex Neil, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, but Alex Salmond, the First Minister, signed the British Heart Foundation’s petition on ELS in schools. We have a Government that is committed to doing this and I am sure that it will happen.
To Margaret Mitchell, I say that Lucky2BHere’s 30-odd defibrillators are all mapped on its website. When you click on it, you get the address and a picture of the building in which the defibrillator is located. If you are panicking, at least you can see the picture of where you have to run towards.
This has been a short contribution to a really good and important debate. I always like to highlight the work that Ross Cowie and Lucky2BHere do on this issue.
17:35
As others have done, I congratulate Margaret Mitchell on securing time for this important debate.
The sudden and unexpected death of a young person that has been caused by an inherited cardiac condition may be rare, but it is always a tragedy. We have made great advances in recent years in reducing the number of people who die as a result of cardiac events, but there is much more that we need to do to reduce that number still further.
A number of members referred to SADS and the particularly devastating effect that it can have on a young person, who often has had no symptoms and no indication that they were at risk.
I acknowledge the work that is undertaken by the familial arrhythmia network for Scotland—or FANS, as it is known—which plays a vital role in helping to identify young people with an arrhythmia. The network brings together cardiologists, clinical geneticists and pathologists to help ensure that we reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death, and target the young people who may be at particular risk.
Nanette Milne referred to CAYA—the cardiac assessment for young athletes. We have provided that programme with a further £40,000 to allow it to continue, so that we can look at further measures that can be undertaken to develop the programme and provide protection to young people who are involved in athletics.
We have taken forward a range of work with the Scottish Ambulance Service, to which we have provided £7.5 million to allow it to purchase more than 500 state-of-the-art defibrillators for all Scottish Ambulance Service ambulances.
Members such as Stewart Stevenson referred to the fact that delay in performing defibrillation can reduce the chances of recovery and the important role that AEDs and PADs—publicly accessible defibrillators—can have in supporting someone who has arrested, prior to the arrival of the emergency services. AEDs and PADs must be looked at in the context of community resilience and what we can do to help the wider community make use of such pieces of equipment when they are available. There is no point in making them publicly available if individuals do not have the confidence and ability to use them.
The Scottish Ambulance Service has been working in remote and urban communities in which a publicly available defibrillator that could benefit those communities can be provided. Some of that work has been done by looking at remote areas, urban venues with high footfall, or areas in which clusters of cardiac arrests have occurred. The Scottish Ambulance Service is also looking to train community members in the use of the equipment.
To support that work, since 2011 the Scottish Ambulance Service has developed a partnership with Scotmid—which owns the Semichem network—and the British Heart Foundation, which has identified shops in which defibrillators could be located. Staff have been trained and supported in how to use defibrillators in the community. I have no doubt that that will help to make defibrillators more accessible and ensure that we have individuals who have received training and can make use of them.
To those who have had no training in the use of an AED, I can say—Stewart Stevenson gave away some of my background in his speech—that they are extremely simple. It is not possible to shock someone accidentally. If the person should not be shocked, the system does not allow a shock to be discharged. It also monitors whether there is any rhythm and, in some cases, it indicates that no shock should be provided because no support is necessary. The units are extremely safe, and although several models are available, they are extremely easy to use with a little training and understanding of them.
In providing the units in different parts of the country, we need to know where they are at any given time. Therefore, the Scottish Ambulance Service is undertaking work to map the publicly accessible defibrillators, and that information will be built into its command and control unit so that, when someone calls for an ambulance, that individual can be directed to where they can get a PAD. I understand that the defibrillators that are being provided in schools in Lanarkshire will form part of that information in the command and control unit, and I have no doubt that that will help to support the service.
I agree with Malcolm Chisholm that it is important that, although technology can help us to a considerable extent in supporting someone who is having a cardiac arrest, we must also ensure that people understand the basics of CPR. It is a bit like going up a mountain with a GPS device but not knowing how to use a compass if the device breaks down. People need to be able to go back to the basics, and part of that is CPR. We are working with the British Heart Foundation, as Malcolm Chisholm said, in providing funding support to develop the heartstart programme, which will provide emergency life-support training for school pupils. That programme is being developed, and we hope to make an announcement later this year when we will take that further forward.
Fiona McLeod referred to Lucky2BHere, a charity based in Skye that is undertaking tremendous work not only around AEDs but around CPR training for school pupils. Work is also being done by Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland with Education Scotland on developing a national emergency life-support education resource that can be used in classrooms as part of the health and wellbeing part of the curriculum for excellence.
Technology has a lot to give in support of addressing this issue, but we must keep it within the wider context of educating our young people in how to carry out CPR as and when it is appropriate. The work that the Scottish Government is doing with the British Heart Foundation will support the delivery of that in schools throughout the country.
I hope that that has given members some assurance about the work that we are undertaking to ensure that publicly available defibrillators are properly mapped and are more widely available in areas where they can be most appropriately used, alongside our support for the training of school pupils in the basics of CPR.
Meeting closed at 17:43.