Hansard

I thank my colleague Jenni Minto for bringing this important debate to the chamber and for her moving opening speech.

As we have heard in excellent speeches from across the chamber, it is clear that defibrillators save lives. We know that a defibrillator is required within three minutes of a cardiac arrest for it to be effective and that the availability of defibrillators is becoming widespread across the communities of Scotland. However, we also know that people who live in the least affluent areas of the country are 60 per cent less likely to survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest because defibrillators are not as available in those areas. More needs to be done to address that quickly. That is why the importance of the work of the British Heart Foundation in partnership with the Scottish Ambulance Service, the NHS and Microsoft in establishing the Circuit, which, as we have heard, is a map of Scotland’s first network of defibrillators, simply cannot be overstated.

We must raise awareness of and educate people about defibrillator use, and register all defibrillators on the Circuit, to help the Scottish Ambulance Service to know where they are in the event of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. We know that early defibrillation can more than double a person’s chances of survival from a cardiac arrest. Many defibrillators are never used because emergency services currently do not know where they are located.

On Christmas day 1982, my dad collapsed with a cardiac arrest while he was out walking the dog near our home. A bus driver stopped to help him, but nothing could be done. Of course, I will never know whether a defibrillator would have saved him, but there is every chance that it could have. That is why I am passionate about defibrillators, expanding their use, and getting them into as many communities as possible. All forms of public transport should carry them—many already do—and they should be available in sports clubs, supermarkets, high streets and any public space in which they could be urgently needed. As I said earlier, it is important that we get more defibrillators in areas of need. That is absolutely vital.

I completely agree with Jenni Minto’s comments on planning regulations for new buildings in relation to defibrillator cabinets and scrapping VAT on defibrillators. Surely that is not too much to ask.

Defibrillators are not expensive, and they are easy to maintain. They are also easy to operate. I witnessed that during a demonstration by the St John Ambulance service in the village of Torrance, in my constituency. The St John Ambulance service and other charitable organisations that help to save lives throughout Scotland provide advice, training and funding to communities that wish to install a public access defibrillator. Such organisations can give vital training in CPR, which, in conjunction with the use of a defibrillator, will give sufferers the absolute best chance of survival. They can work with people to establish the best location for a defibrillator in their local area, give advice on fundraising and help with the costs.

Every minute without cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation reduces the chance of survival by up to 10 per cent, which is why it is so important that the Ambulance Service has quick access to defibrillators. Registration on the Circuit is essential.

As we heard, there are around 135,000 people in Scotland who have survived a heart attack. Although survivor rates are generally high, when it comes to the 3,200 or so out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Scotland each year, the survival rate is only one in 10.

Currently, fewer than 5 per cent of people who experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest receive bystander defibrillation. The rate will increase as more defibrillators become available and, crucially, more people have the confidence to use them. I hope that this debate will help in that regard.

We should remember that the locations of tens of thousands of defibrillators are currently not known by the Ambulance Service. Knowledge of a defibrillator’s location can make the difference between life and death for a person who has suffered a cardiac arrest.