The British Heart Foundation has been campaigning for Emergency Life Support skills to be included on the national curriculum in the UK.

When someone is having a heart attack, has serious bleeding, choking, is unconscious or in cardiac arrest, knowing what to do to help keep them alive until professional help arrives can give their chances of survival a significant boost. CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), taught in secondary schools as part of ELS (emergency life support), might double a casualty’s chances of survival from a cardiac arrest.

Click here to sign the petition to lobby the government to include first aid on the national curriculum. You can also e-mail your local politician to help raise awareness of the campaign. Getting first aid taught in all secondary schools would be a huge step forward for the UK, as the BHF point out “knowing how to stop bleeding, open an airway or perform CPR should be considered as important as knowing your times tables”. Please sign the petition today!

Update

After years of campaigning the UK government are introducing compulsory first aid and CPR training to all secondary schools in England from 2020. This is hugely exciting and marks a big step in trying to improve the UK’s out of hospital cardiac arrest survival rate, which is currently 1 in 10.