Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) on securing this important debate, and I start by sending my condolences to George Smith’s family at this very difficult time. Many Members may know that, before coming to this place, I was both a doctor and a barrister. As a doctor, I worked predominantly in acute care, so I have seen the brutal speed with which cardiac arrest can lead to death. But as a barrister, I specialised in inquests and clinical negligence, and I also saw what happened when people did not get timely interventions, and the devastating consequences that arose. As many Members have set out, the stark reality is that every minute counts. Every minute reduces life expectancy by 10%. If someone gets prompt intervention, their survival rate can be as high as 70% if their defib is within 200 metres of their location. That is a three-to-five-minute brisk walk there and back. But the stark reality is that out-of-hospital arrests have a survival rate of less than one in 12. Compared with in-hospital arrests, the survival rate to discharge is in the region of 25%. That is why this was an important focus for me when I was elected to Parliament for Solihull West and Shirley. Despite the fact that my constituency has a mix of urban and semi-rural places, only 40.32% of our defibs are within the recommended distance and there are only seven public defibs per 10,000 people, which is well below the national recommendation. Across the United Kingdom, the per-population count for defibs is approximately five to 10 times lower than it is in a country such as Japan. That cannot be right in this day and age, which is why, for one of my office fundraisers this year, we all went and did the Solihull way. We walked 20-odd miles in the day, and raised money for two defibs and some bleed kits on behalf of a brilliant charity called the Daniel Baird Foundation. It was particularly moving to be able to donate one of those defibs to the Wave café in my constituency, where a valued member of the community had sadly died some months earlier because they did not have access to a defib. I am going to reiterate a couple of calls that have already been made to the Minister, who I know has been listening carefully. First, we should exempt defibs from VAT—it is ridiculous. For every five defibs that are currently bought, we could afford another if we got rid of VAT.