8. What is the Welsh Government doing to improve the survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Islwyn? OAQ52789

Thank you for the question. Last week, I issued a written statement providing an update on the implementation of the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest plan and announcing the establishment of the Save a Life Cymru partnership. The Welsh Government will now invest £586,000 to fund the first two years of that project.

Diolch, Cabinet Secretary. Last week in the Chamber, you announced that the Welsh Government was establishing a strategic partnership, similar to the one in Scotland, called Save a Life Cymru. The groundbreaking Welsh ambulance service's Restart a Heart campaign, launched last autumn, has taught nearly 13,000 schoolchildren life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which, alongside the Welsh ambulance's paramedic support for the access and availability of publicly placed heart defibrillators—highlighted by the dedicated Jack's Law campaign—has meant that public defibrillators in schools have already saved lives in Islwyn.

I'm also grateful for the support of my colleague and fellow AM Jack Sargeant on furthering these critical life-saving initiatives. How, then, will the Welsh Government monitor support and ensure that the communities of Islwyn are fully engaged in the Save a Life Cymru campaign to learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation, ensuring survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Islwyn? And what further role is there for rolling out public defibrillators across Wales and furthering Jack's Law?

Well, of course I'm interested. There are a range of individual third sector organisations that are actively promoting the use of, and the funding of, defibrillators, including, actually, their monitoring and maintenance as well. What we try to do, as part of this work, is to bring those organisations together to understand where gaps do and don't exist.

I'm pleased that, yesterday, 75 secondary schools across Wales took part in the Restart a Heart initiative, learning basic life-saving techniques. And I myself have undertaken some of that training in the last two years, although last year, I was in Pembrokeshire with Joyce Watson, and we had to leave as there was a storm and they had to send all the children home because that's life when you're relying on the weather.

Look, I also know that there'll be more schools taking part in the coming days, including Islwyn High School, and that will be about volunteers with the Welsh ambulance service monitoring what's happening through the partnership. That will be monitored by the heart conditions implementation group, so there'll be oversight from people in Government, from within the health service, and the third sector, and, of course, I'll be more than happy to report back to this place on the progress that we are making.

Thank you Cabinet Secretary.