Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of public-access defibrillators located in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England; and if he will make a statement.

David Mowat

No estimate has been made of the number of public-access defibrillators located in Coventry, the West Midlands and England or of the number of people who have taken part in coronary pulmonary resuscitation training delivered by the National Health Service.

We recognise that better provision of defibrillators and increasing the number of people trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation could help save more lives of those who have a cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting.

That is why the Chancellor announced in the budget in March that the Government is making available another £1 million to make public access defibrillators and coronary pulmonary resuscitation training more widely available in communities across England. This builds on last year’s funding of £1 million, which provided almost 700 more publicly accessible defibrillators in communities across England and increased the numbers of people trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Details on how this second tranche of the funding can be accessed will be available in due course.