Members' Business: St Andrew’s First Aid

That the Parliament acknowledges the campaign by St Andrew’s First Aid, Scotland’s only dedicated national first aid charity, to address the shortage of first aid skills in Scotland and to help save more lives in areas of social deprivation, including in Glasgow; understands that the call follows the publication of the Scottish OHCA Data Linkage Project, which looked into survival rates from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in Scotland; notes that the report indicated that those living in the most deprived areas of the country were twice as likely to have an OHCA as people living in more affluent areas, with 28% against 14%, and that those from the most deprived areas were 43% less likely to survive a cardiac arrest than those from more affluent areas; notes that the report, which was delivered jointly by the University of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government, and supported by the Scottish Ambulance Service and National Services Scotland, found that survival rates in Scotland following OHCA are estimated between just six and eight per cent, with the European average sitting at 10.2%, which puts Scotland among European countries with the lowest survival rates; wishes St Andrew’s First Aid success with its efforts to ensure that people across Scotland are equipped with vital, lifesaving first aid skills, and notes calls on the Scottish Government to recognise the importance of first aid and to support efforts to establish a nation of skilled first-aiders.