Andrew last week pushed forward his campaign for defibrillators in local schools and across the country. Andrew brought his campaign to Department for Education officials with organisations who have been campaigning on the issue including the British Heart Foundation, the Resuscitation Council, the Red Cross, and St John Ambulance.
Andrew, who chaired the meeting, is promoting the use of defibrillators in schools and wants to see more community access defibrillators.
The meeting came about following the Andrew's lobbying of the Rt Hon Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, on the issue last year.
Andrew is a local Community First Responder and is passionate about increasing the number of life-saving defibrillators in public places. He recently ran a campaign, alongside the Ambulance Service in Airmyn and the Marshlands, asking for support from local residents for public access defibrillators and successfully secured one for each location. In addition to this, a defibrillator and cabinet for Rawcliffe Bridge has been secured. Many other communities have expressed an interest in getting their own public access defibrillator.
Andrew recently met with a local GP practice to ask for their defibrillator to be put on the outside, in order to make it a community access defibrillator.
Andrew has worked with North Lincs Council Leader, Cllr Liz Redfern, and local councillors to secure a £75,000 community defibrillator fund to roll-out more community access defibrillators across local communities in North Lincs. He has previously secured £10,000 of funding from North Lincolnshire Council to install defibrillators into the five secondary schools in the North Lincolnshire part of the constituency.
Andrew Percy says, “I have taken my campaign for more defibrillators to Parliament. It’s important in our area and across the country too. I have seen first-hand what a difference a defibrillator can make, it’s quite literally the difference between life and death in some cases.
“In Seattle they have a public access defibrillator programme and as a result your chance of surviving an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is over 50%, whereas in the UK it’s just 20%.
“The Department for Education agreed to meet with us to discuss our ideas. The officials agreed to take away and review our evidence. I look forward to hearing from the Department in the near future.”
Photo: Andrew and various organisations at the meeting in Parliament.
