Today I visited the folks at St John’s Ambulance in Plymouth, they provide first aid support for all of our big events in the City, from Armed Forces Day to Bonfire Night.

Everyone should know first aid. It will help you save the life of someone you know or a stranger, and it’s a skill that we need to be teaching people from primary school upwards.

It was great to see the volunteers and the team at the Plymouth base of St John’s Ambulance and to learn about their first aid training: what they do for someone having a heart attack or someone bleeding or choking; and to see their professionalism. This service is delivered by people who are simply giving up their time to help save the lives of others and takes incredible effort and commitment.

I also spoke to them about the need to make sure all of the defibrillators that we have in Plymouth are properly registered on the circuit. The circuit is the register of defibrillators, that means that if you call 999 for someone having a heart attack, the emergency services and the call handler will be able to direct you to your nearest defibrillator. It’s so important that when someone is having a heart attack they get help as quickly as possible, that means not only an ambulance arriving fast, but also someone being able to support them with a defibrillator. I’ve had an incident myself at one of my public meetings when we needed to use one on someone who’d had a heart attack, and I spoke about it recently in the House of Commons on a debate about providing more access to defibrillators. You can see more about that debate here

St John Ambulance do amazing work and it was great to meet their highly skilled volunteers and some members of their cadets, young people who are learning and volunteering their time to save the lives of other people, and they all do a superb job. Thank you