Students at Long Field Academy, in Melton, are amongst the latest to benefit from life-saving training. Experts from the Leicestershire Heartsafe Schools Programme provided the training to the year 10 pupils, aimed at raising awareness of cardiac arrest and teaching them how to use an automated defibrillator, along with how to put someone in the recovery position.

The programme has provided automated defibrillators to 93 secondary schools in the city and county. The have been funded by a number of local charitable organisations including the Joe Humphries Memorial Trust and Leicester City Foxes Foundation.

Dr William Toff, a director of Heartsafe and a senior lecturer in cardiology at the University of Leicester said: ‘ By ensuring every secondary school pupil receives training in these simple life-saving skills, we hope to improve the bystander response rate and improve survival rates from their current low level of less than 10% to as much as 50 per cent or more.’

Dr Doug Skehan, a Heartsafe director and consultant cardiologist, said: ‘ The training takes us a step closer to creating a generation of life-savers who can spread their training to their family and community.’

To find out more about both the Leicestershire Heartsafe Secondary Schools programme and Joe’s Mini Heartstart For Sports Clubs training go to: http://jhmt.org.uk/our-programmes

(Article courtesy of Leicester Mercury and photo credit to Lionel Heep)