Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrests

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:17 pm on 17 October 2018.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:17, 17 October 2018

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.