The Oliver King Foundation, a charity dedicated to preventing deaths from sudden cardiac arrest, has written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, calling for defibrillator training to be provided to teachers and school staff across England.

Mark King OBE, founder of the Oliver King Foundation, acknowledged the government’s commitment to supplying defibrillators to all state-funded schools in England. However, the Merseyside-based charity is now calling for training to ensure lives are not needlessly put at risk as children return to school for the new term.

The government committed in 2022 to providing at least one defibrillator in every state-funded school by the end of the 2022/23 academic year, but the Foundation has raised concerns that in many schools across England the life-saving devices remain unusable because no staff have been trained to operate them.

The charity is warning that defibrillator training must be made a priority in schools, with up to 12 young people in the UK losing their lives to Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome each week. Schools, it stresses, should be safe spaces where teachers and staff are fully equipped to respond in an emergency.

Mark King OBE, who lost his 12-year-old son to sudden cardiac arrest during a school swimming race in 2012, says: “This is a matter of safeguarding the health and lives of our children whilst at school. Training is a common-sense solution that transcends political lines and reflects a shared commitment to the wellbeing of every child in England.

“The presence of defibrillators in schools alone is not going to solve the problem. Providing adequate training is crucial as a means of maximising the valuable investment made by the former government and in ensuring that every child, teacher and visitors in our schools are as safe as possible in the event of a cardiac emergency.

“At the moment training is not being provided adequately and we are hearing from some schools that it is non-existent, with some defibrillators being locked in cupboards never to see the light of day again. It is deeply worrying.

“Failure to provide this training is putting the lives of schoolchildren needlessly at risk. I am calling on the Prime Minister, who is a father himself, to get his government to act on this. It is becoming an emergency in the school system.

“I have written to the Prime Minister and leaders of all political parties in the UK to raise this issue as children start returning to school next month.”

The full letter to the Prime Minister can be read here.

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