Defibrillators: Emergency Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will hold discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of increasing the proportion of (a) police, (b) fire and (c) other emergency service vehicles that are fitted with defibrillators.
Answered by Dame Diana Johnson
The Department for Health and Social Care has confirmed that all ambulances carry defibrillators. Provision of defibrillators in police and fire vehicles is an operational matter for either the individual police force or fire and rescue service to determine at local level.
The Home Office recently purchased over 500 defibrillators to distribute to police forces free of charge and for them to deploy according to their local knowledge. We continue to work to explore what more could be done to increase availability of defibrillators more generally where this is within the remit of the Home Office, including through our ongoing engagement with the OurJay Foundation.
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