Hansard

I am pleased to speak in this members’ business debate and congratulate James Dornan on securing it. St Andrew’s First Aid’s campaign is really important and, if members do not mind, I will read the entire pledge into the Parliament’s Official Report. It says:

“No one should die because they needed First Aid and didn’t get it. I pledge to support St Andrew’s First Aid and the First Aid Count Me In campaign. I am supporting the campaign because I believe in the value of First Aid and acknowledge that it is a vital life-saving skill. It is really important to have champions of First Aid in local communities and by signing this campaign I am demonstrating my support for First Aid. Together we can save lives.”

That is such an interesting and indeed beautifully put together pledge that everyone should be willing to support it. I certainly have pledged my support for the campaign.

It is worth mentioning that GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, Clyde 1 radio, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and Young Scot are partners in the campaign. I am particularly keen about the involvement of Young Scot because, as James Dornan has made clear, St Andrew’s First Aid is very much about its volunteers, who play a vital role in disseminating information to young people and supporting young volunteers. Both Nanette Milne and David Torrance mentioned the scouts; indeed, I received my first-ever first aid training as a member of one of the uniformed youth organisations, and the young people in the scouts or in voluntary award schemes such as the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme who are getting first aid skills are doing a great service to each other, their friends and our country.

Interestingly, the 34,000 target for signatures equates to the number of people who are admitted to hospital as a result of household accidents. Perhaps I can give the chamber a little bit of a breakdown of that 34,000 figure by highlighting the 2011 figures for two ends of the spectrum. In the under-5s group, there were 3,182 admissions to hospital, the majority of which were for accidents that happened in their homes, while in the over-65s, there were 21,196 admissions to hospital, many of which were, again, the result of accidents in their own homes. In the latter group, there were very few admissions as a result of road traffic accidents; most were the result of trips and falls, which we know to be a significant problem in our ageing population.

These figures, however, are just the tip of the iceberg, because they show only those who were admitted to hospital. Far more people who are injured have to attend their general practitioner or other types of emergency services and are not admitted to accident and emergency departments. Perhaps their injuries are not as serious, but they will certainly have experienced significant discomfort and upset from them.

At lunch time today, I chaired a meeting of the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on accident prevention and safety awareness. Obviously, we look at issues relating to preventing accidents, and that is partly about educating people. We know that, when people are educated about the risks and dangers around them, their risk-taking behaviour reduces. If we are undertaking to improve people’s knowledge of first aid and to get them to understand the dangers around them in their homes and as they go about their daily business, that education alone will let us as a society understand better the dangers that we face and, I hope, improve the outcomes for our young and elderly people.