Prepared to Save a Life Launches at the House of Commons

Prepared to Save a Life launch at the House of Commons

The House of Commons was the venue for the national launch of the new ‘Prepared to Save a Life’ campaign on 30 October 2018. The campaign is a collaboration between Virtual College, the Community Save a Life Scheme and Bolsover Council whose mission it is to have a life saver on every street corner of the UK.

The launch took place in Parliament and was kindly supported by Lee Rowley, MP for North East and Derbyshire. The day consisted of a drop-in session to gain the support of Members of Parliaments and Health Ministers and a VIP event which included speeches by Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care Caroline Dinenage, Rod Knox CEO of Virtual College, Cheryle Berry MBE and Lord Mawson.

The launch was a huge success with over 25 MP’s pledging to ‘Save a Life’ and receiving support from Sports Direct, Yorkshire Ambulance Service, Qualsafe and Chesterfield Football Club to get their organisations ‘fully prepared’ to save lives.

Today in the UK, every 7 minutes someone will have a heart attack and 180 people will die. 1 in 5 adults will witness someone collapse who needs immediate first aid and the majority of people do not act. Virtual College believe to reduce the statistics it is crucial to ensure there is a life saver on every street and to do this e-learning is the way forward.

Virtual College, turned the Community Save a Life’s traditional face-to-face first aid training into a free, online course designed to provide basic life-saving skills for all. As part of their Tech4Good campaign, Virtual College has donated their time, support and technical infrastructure to help raise awareness of the project.

“Over the last 10 years Virtual College has donated over £300,000 to children’s charities as part of its Tech4Good activity and the Prepared to Save a Life campaign is a terrific example how we can help a small charity achieve its large-scale ambitions. Utilising our expertise in online technology and over 3.3 million registered learners, we can truly take basic lifesaving skills to all” Rod Knox, CEO Virtual College.

All it requires to get prepared to save a life is signing up, dedicating up to an hour of time to complete the course and the learner is equipped to help anyone who needs first aid. The course consists of several online modules including CPR, stroke, choking and bleeding and on successful completion of the module each learner receives a printable certificate.

How you can get Involved

Getting prepared to save a life is simple, click here and register. Once you have registered, complete the learning which includes bite-sized modules and quizzes to test your learning and receive your certificate.

If you would like to pledge for your organisation to become ‘fully prepared to save a life’ visit https://www.virtual-college.co.uk/prepared to find out more.