6. Debate on a Member's Legislative Proposal: Welsh Hearts Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:50 pm on 21 October 2020.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 3:50, 21 October 2020

I very much welcome this debate and the underpinning proposal that lies behind it. Alun, when we heard the news of what had happened to you, it did send shockwaves through and was particularly poignant to me at the time because five and a half years earlier, my wife had a cardiac arrest and didn't survive. She was on her own at the time; I gave CPR for what seemed an eternity, but I think the point is how many families are actually affected by it and the actual numbers of cardiac arrests that there are.

For me, one of the issues that perhaps wasn't mentioned in it but might form part of the debate is, in fact, the need for, I think, a more proactive scanning to take place to identify some of the causes of cardiac arrest and how they occur. When one looks with hindsight at these situations, you wonder how many lives might have been saved had that been the case.

In Tonyrefail, there's been a fantastic group led by PC Steve Davies, and in Tonyrefail now we have the highest density of defibrillators: there are well over 30 defibrillators around Tonyrefail and there are several lives that have been saved already by those. And that group as well has also provided training and support, with the British Heart Foundation, in schools and so on, so the issue of training is very, very important.

One thing that is raised, though, that again might form part of this in respect of defibrillators is that communities come together, they raise considerable funds to provide the defibrillators—this is about communities working for one another collectively, but there is a need for some support in that, once those defibrillators are there, the batteries need replacing periodically and there may be a certain amount of maintenance and so on. And I think once you've gone to the effort of actually getting those defibrillators in place, I think there is a need for some sort of support to actually enable the maintenance of those assets as they are. So, that would be one of the key points I would like to see developed and discussed.

So, just to thank Alun Davies for bringing this—I think there are probably many families around who have experienced this, and, as has been said, most that experience cardiac arrest do not survive. Hopefully, by having this debate, and potentially by using the tools and, potentially, legislation, we can actually reduce that failure rate in the future. Thank you.