 The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 2093 in the name of Jenny Minto on importance of community defibrillators. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put with those members who wish to contribute to the debate. Please press the request-to-speak buttons now as soon as possible, place an R in the chat function, and I call on Jenny Minto to open the debate for around seven minutes. My dear friend Carl Revy died of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in January 2018. He was 61. Carl was a force of nature and his sudden, shocking death impacted on the many people who had the great fortune to know him. This debate is in Carl's memory and in those of all who have lost loved ones as a result of cardiac arrest, but as a recognition of communities across Scotland, including within my constituency of Argyll and Bute, who have raised funds, completed training and helped to save lives through the installation of defibrillators. I thank all the members from across the chamber who have supported the motion. We are in the privileged position of being able to help to raise the awareness of the work that the British Heart Foundation is doing alongside the Scottish Ambulance Service, NHS Scotland and Microsoft in establishing the Circuit, Scotland's first network of defibrillators. I never met my maternal grandfather. He died of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in 1964. Back then, there was only a vague understanding of the processes underlying heart disease. Doctors could not do much, but simply let nature take its course. Since then, the Scottish death rate from heart and circulatory diseases has declined by more than three quarters, but for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and there are about 3,200 in Scotland every year, the survival rate is only 10 per cent. Starkly, every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces the chance of survival by 10 per cent. The Scottish Government, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest strategy, aims for 20 per cent of cardiac arrests to have a defibrillator applied before the ambulance arrives. With research suggesting that this means a defibrillator every 200 metres in urban areas and one for every 1,000 people in rural areas, this is quite a target to reach. Cairn Dew, around the head of Loch Fine in Argyllun but, has three community defibrillators, two community-funded and one by a local business. Last year, one was deployed when a visitor fell ill in a remote part of the community. The response was exceptional. The British Heart Foundation had provided two basic life support training sessions in the Cairn Dew village hall. The first person on the scene had attended the training and commenced manual CPR, while directing someone else to get the nearest defibrillator and raise the alarm. The air ambulance, an ambulance crew and police all attended. The community defibrillator was applied before the services arrived. This was a community response made possible by the British Heart Foundation training, locally funded defibrillators and good community awareness. The next day, the defibrillator pads were replaced by private community donations to keep the defibrillator in service. Without individuals donating or communities fundraising, the defibrillators will not be there, so the Scottish Government's target may be difficult to achieve. My motion notes that more could be done. Here are two suggestions. I am sure that there are a lot more. By using building planning, could new developments be mandated to put in a defibrillator cabinet? Following on from my question at last week's budget, could the Scottish Government campaign for a vat removal or a reduction on defibrillators? I started by remembering Carl Reavy. Carl's life was action packed. He was a sound engineer with the undertones, a bird watcher, a photographer, an editor, a hotelier, a promoter of whisky, a cyclist. He was a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a friend. Carl's smile, and laughter lit up the room, but an electrical malfunction in his heart forced life from him. Jan, his wife, was alone with him when it happened. She dialed 999. She administered CPR being told not to stop until the ambulance arrived. She couldn't leave him. No one knew to get the village defibrillator. Registring your community defibrillator on the circuit might help in circumstances like this, so please, please do it. Presiding officer, I will finish with the words on the memorial for Carl in the community woodland that he and I worked together to establish. A lover of nature by nature, good-natured, by nature a friend, a lover of a dram naturally, by nature a thinker, by nature a doer, a force of nature. I simply ask on behalf of Jan that we lose no more forces of nature simply because a defibrillator is not registered on the circuit. I have quite a short contribution, but it is important that I advise the chamber of the activities and influence of Scottish Heart in campaigning to increase the distribution of defibrillators. Scottish Heart, which stands for Heart at Risk Testing, was founded in 1997 by Kenneth and Wilma Gunn, for some time myself at constituents. I know that it is not listed in the various organisations, but it is an important little organisation. Tragically, just as the stories that you have recalled, on May 27 1991, their son Cameron collapsed and died during a five-or-side football match. Even more cruelly, it was the night before his 20th birthday. He suffered from hypertropic cariamopathy, though nobody knew about that until after his death. Regrettably, other young people, often active sportsmen and women, have also died in a similar tragic fashion. From 1997 onwards, Wilma Gunn and Kenny Her husband fundraised the profile, even in here, campaigned for not only early testing of young athletes, but accessible defibrillators. Again, not many knew what a defibrillator, including myself, was. In Parliament here, the profile was raised with debates and with petitions in the early years of this Parliament. In 2014, deservedly, Wilma was awarded an MBE. Today, we have defibrillators in many points, train, bus stations, airports, supermarkets, here and in some workplaces. Kenny and Wilma Gunn have not stopped campaigning and are keen to see those even more distributed. They are easy to use. The new ones are easy to use. You cannot hurt the patient. In fact, it is better to use them and let them die in front of you. You cannot do any more harm than doing nothing. I have practised here and elsewhere on them, and if I can use them, because I am hopeless, anyone else certainly can. Those invaluable minutes on the defibrillator will mean life or death until the medics arrive. This is especially relevant in rural areas such as my constituency, where paramedics cannot simply be there within eight minutes. I wanted to come into this debate to remind the chamber of other less well-known people who have campaigned through tragic circumstances to try and bring this issue, which saved so many lives to the forefront. I congratulate Wilma and Kenny Gunn, who, all these years later, are still campaigning for Scottish heart and defibrillators. I warmly congratulate Jenny Minto for bringing this vital and important issue, and for the tone that she has set. I thought that she made a very moving speech, and it is something that we all have to play our own part in. I am somebody who witnessed the life-saving capacity of rural defibrillators when one member of my constituency staff suffered a cardiac arrest when located in a rural part of Persia. I have no doubt whatsoever that if the village had not had a defibrillator to hand, this colleague would not have survived. The office that Murdoff Fraser and myself share is part of the building for the air ambulance, and I know just how much they appreciate all the work that is done. Now, more than ever, we are so aware of what our healthcare services do for us and, indeed, just how precious are the principles of the NHS that it meets the needs of everyone based on clinical need. We are also so aware of the work that the exceptional NHS staff undertake, but we have to include the work of all those who look after our rapid response ambulance teams, all those who are involved in campaigning for defibrillators, and it is important to complement the members of our local communities, just as Christine Grahame has done, who are so much part of this very important campaign. Over 3,000 people every year suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, but if you are one of those 3,000 living in a rural area, you are 32 per cent less likely to survive than others. People from more deprived areas are 60 per cent less likely to survive to be discharged from most of the more less deprived areas. The responsibility, of course, is for us all to ensure that, no matter where people are, we are able to respond to any out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. It is very good to hear that, over the past five years, the Save a Life for Scotland partnership has equipped to over 640,000 people with the skills necessary to resuscitate, continuing to train people and how to react is vital. However, we also need defibrillator equipment readily available and, just as important, properly maintained. As both Christine Grahame and Jenny Minto have flagged up, the information about where they are located is crucial. I wholeheartedly support the provision of more defibrillators, and I was delighted to hear that the Rattery community has become the latest in the Perth and Kinross area to install a new defibrillator just in November. However, there are challenges to ensuring that the yearly monitoring, which is so important, actually happens, that the part replacement costs can be met, that the location of the devices can be made more consistent and that we can support our local communities. We know in Wales that the Government has pledged £3 million to improve public access to defibrillators, and, as Jenny Minto rightly pointed out, there is little more that we can do in Scotland to ensure that we have further outrage. In 2015, only around one in 20 survived an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Thankfully, that statistic is a little better. It is now one in 10, but the survival rate is, of course, still too low. I welcome the progress that we have made, the increased chance of survival, and the continued installations of defibrillator equipment across Scotland in its entirety. However, we still have a long way to go to ensuring that people's lives are fully protected. For me, that is not just about the clinical assistance that we need to provide, it is about ourselves taking responsibility and ensuring that our local communities are very well prepared and know exactly what to do. I think that we have all a part to play as MSPs in helping that process. I warmly thank Jenny Minto again for this debate, and I will do my part to ensure that we are giving that support. Thank you very much, Ms Smith. I now call on Stuart McMillan, who will be followed by Carl Mawr. Thank you very much. First of all, I want to congratulate Jenny Minto for securing this important debate. I agree wholeheartedly with her motion, as public access to defibrillators has become one of the biggest constituency matters that I have ever dealt with. In 2017, I met a local woman, Kathleen Orr, whose son, Jaden, tragically died following a cardiac arrest. During Kathleen's evidence to the Public Petitions Committee in 2018, she said, and I quote, Jaden went skating in the morning, as usual, and to his normal skate club in the evening. While he was doing his normal skate routine, he collapsed on the ice and never got back up again. That was when my world fell apart. I do not remember too much after that, but I know that there were a lot of members of staff and not one of them knew what the others were doing. To my knowledge, there was a defibrillator, but none of the staff used it because they were not fully trained and were scared of doing so. Kathleen was given evidence after lodging her petition to make it a legal requirement to have a public access defibrillator placed on all new buildings over a certain size, which is option 1 that Jenny Minto put forward earlier. I have gotten to know Kathleen on her mission to increase the number of defibrillators across Inverclyde. When she started her charity in memory of Jaden, affectionately called Jaden's Rainbow, there were only four automated external defibrillators or AEDs in Inverclyde. Today, there are 41 of them, including two at Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow, one on each of the two ships being built. If it were not for Covid, there would be more across the constituency. Following discussions with Kathleen, I brought local and national stakeholders together to help to increase AED provision across Inverclyde and Scotland. As St Andrew's first aid was so impressed with Kathleen's work, they gifted her 30 of their old AEDs that were then reconditioned. She is placing those across Inverclyde in addition to those that she has already fundraised and given to local schools and put us through her campaigning and fundraising efforts. Kathleen, her daughter Kerry and son Declan, all now volunteer with St Andrew's first aid, as well as improving access to the AEDs. They want to show everyone that we should not be afraid of AEDs. In fact, they are foolproof. They will not work unless someone has a shockable heart rhythm. According to St Andrew's first aid, those in the most deprived areas are 43 per cent less likely to survive a cardiac arrest. Given Inverclyde's challenges with deprivation, Kathleen's efforts become all the more significant when we acknowledge that statistic. In the last few years, there has been a real awakening to the need to increase access to AEDs, but it is also the importance of having a record of where they all are. That is why the work of the British Heart Foundation in partnership with the Scottish Ambulance Service, the NHS and Microsoft in establishing the circuit Scotland's first network of defibrillators is so vital. The British Heart Foundation provided a very helpful briefing for this debate, and I want to highlight just three key points. First of all, performing CPR can more than double the chances of survival in some cases. Secondly, every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces the chance of survival by up to 10 per cent. Thirdly, tens of thousands of defibrillators are currently not known by ambulance services. Knowing that the defibrillator's location can be the difference between life and death. I want to conclude on that point that owning a defibrillator is great, but if nobody knows where it is in an emergency, you can actually have that life-saving machine lying dormant. Anyone who is watching this, anyone who is going to read the official report after this debate, please register your AED with the circuit. Thank you very much. I also thank Jenny Minto for bringing this important debate to the chamber. It was a lovely contribution from her. In my view, the debate allows us to consider and connect two important elements, the life-saving technologies that we are so lucky to have available to us, and the community that brings it to our doors to ensure that, whenever possible, lives can be saved. We have heard a bit about what cardiac arrest from members before me could be clear. Sudden cardiac arrest occurs suddenly and often without warning. Sudden cardiac arrest is the abrupt loss of heart function, breathing and consciousness. I also think that we need to understand and remind ourselves, as others have, that death occurs within minutes if the victim does not receive treatment. Therefore, it is so important that we raise the understanding and awareness of that condition. The debate tonight here in the Scottish Parliament quite rightly can be a step towards raising that awareness, but, as the chamber knows, we must go further in our campaigns after this debate. Figures that we have heard reveal that every year over 3,000 people in Scotland experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The British Heart Foundation figures show that only one in 10 victims survive. However, crucially, the chance of surviving a cardiac arrest jumps from 6 per cent to 74 per cent if the casualty is in a shock hole rhythm and a defibrator is deployed within three minutes. That statistic shows so clearly why it is important, as the motion states, to have accessible community defibrators well maintained and easily available to every community. We are to reduce deaths from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. It is important, as people have said, that people know how to use the defibrators. It is important that we train people to use them and it is important that people feel confident to use them. Understanding that, with quick decisive action that we can save a life, that gives us all great purpose to do more. Access to defibrators is vital to saving lives, and at this point I would like to say to Jenny Minn, that I would happily support any of the campaigns that she puts forward from this debate. That is where I also want to pay tribute to the communities who fundraise and maintain these defibrators, these life-saving pieces of equipment. My own community of Malklin at a well-thought-out strategy, following some fantastic fundraising, has resulted in a community defibrator based at the centre of the village, with another duty to be installed in another part of the village. The community association based at Centre Stain has implemented a plan that includes good maintenance, as well as ensuring that there is a high level of local understanding in terms of how to access and use the equipment, as well as registering it with the circuit. Those measures, as we have heard from other members in the debate, in any community are to be commended, and I am so proud of the efforts in my own village. Before finishing, I want to raise awareness of the circuit. As I mentioned, my local defibrator is registered with the circuit. The national defibrator network, which provides a national overview of where defibrators can be found, connects to the NHS ambulance service across the UK, so that crucial moments after a cardiac arrest can be accessed quickly to help to save lives. At the moment, as we have heard, many defibrators never get used, because emergency services do not know where they are. That can cost lives, and that is why it is so important that that infrastructure is available. Before I conclude, I would like to take time to reaffirm a key point that I have made in previous debates in the chamber. Inequalities in health and healthcare cannot be ignored, and, as I mentioned in the debate, it is no different in this instance. People from more deprived areas in Scotland are almost twice as likely to have an out-of-hour cardiac arrest and are 60 per cent less likely to survive to Lee's hospital than those from less deprived areas. We must not forget those factors when planning for the future. I believe that it is crucial that the Government address issues of inequality as a matter of urgency, but, if bored, it is too late for more people. Key to that is tackling the root causes of health inequality. Once again, can I recognise the importance of that motion and commend the work of those volunteers and organisations who are raising awareness of that issue, and thank all the members for contributing to this important debate this evening? Thank you, Ms Mocken. I now call Jackie Dunbar, who will be followed by Gillian Mackay. Four minutes, please, Ms Dunbar. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I congratulate Jenny Minto for bringing this motion forward for members' business tonight and for her very personal and very powerful speech. I know just how close the subject is to Jenny as I first met her at a British Heart Foundation round-table event during the election campaign. I saw that day someone who was as passionate as I was in ensuring that we do all that we can to ensure access to defibrillators. At the end of the day, defibrillators can be the difference between life and death for someone who suffers cardiac arrest and it highlights the important role that they play in our communities. On that point, it is so important that they are widely available, accessible and that folk know how to use them to save someone's life. Presiding Officer, defibrillators are used to administrate an electric shock to a person who is having a cardiac arrest and are designed for use by your average person to allow someone with no medical training to save a life. They can and should be available in public places for use by the public when they are required. Those defibrillators are designed to be used by members of the public who have not received any training but we need people to be confident and not scared of potentially using one in a life or death scenario. The devices provide audible instructions and sometimes visual prompts on a screen to help people through the process, making them easier and safer to use. It is so important that people know what to expect when using a defibrillator and my understanding is that when a person puts the pads on a chest it will analyse the heart's electrical rhythm and if it detects an abnormal rhythm, which is likely to respond to a shock, it will charge itself. That takes away a huge responsibility on the person who is going to use it. Some devices deliver the shock automatically without needing any further action by the operator. Others instruct the operator to press a button to deliver the shock before instructing the operator to carry out CPR for a period. It may require more than one shock to save someone's life, but the machine will talk you through every step of the way, so please do not be scared to use one. One of the key things for people to know is that it won't allow a shock to be given unless it's needed, meaning that it is extremely unlikely that it will do any harm to the person who has collapsed. I was extremely pleased that Aberdeen City Council recently agreed to have officers look at the feasibility of providing defibrillators in all schools and sheltered accommodation buildings. That received cross-party support, which is probably very rare nowadays in the chamber of Aberdeen City Council. It was brilliant to see that across the chamber we came together to agree that. As I have said repeatedly, it is so important that defibrillators are in accessible locations and that they are known about in the communities that they are in. A key point to the success of them is knowing where to find one and then being accessible and close to where they are needed. Unfortunately, I could not find a central bank of locations where people can log on to find their nearest one. A quick internet search puts my nearest one at my home at Northfield Community Centre, but I know that there are ones closer. I encourage all those with defibrillators to register them on the circuit website to ensure that everyone can quickly find the nearest one in an emergency. I thank Jenny Minto once again for bringing in this important thing forward today. I thank Jenny Minto, too, for bringing this very important debate to the chamber. Her powerful speech has set the tone for this important debate. I also thank the British Heart Foundation for the briefing that they have sent us all. Since the 1960s, we have seen huge strides forward in heart attack survival. In the 1960s, more than 7 out of 10 heart attacks were fatal. Today, at least 7 out of 10 survive. There are currently 10,000 hospital admissions for heart attacks each year, on average one every 50 minutes. We need to do more work on making people aware of their heart health risks and the implication that that has for their long-term health. We know of the links between poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking and inequality and poor health. Inequality as a driver of poor health cannot be underplayed and the prevalence of heart disease in areas of higher inequality points to the work that still needs to be done. As Stuart McMillan pointed out, you are also less likely to have access to a defibrillator in areas of high inequality. Let me stress that it is never too late to look after your heart health. I know that the new year would often give rise to an attempt to establish new healthy habits, but I would encourage everyone to seriously look at your heart health and the small but important lifestyle changes that you could make to improve it. Preventative care is a huge part of cutting down the number of heart attacks and potential cardiac arrests, but when they happen and when those instances are not in hospital, CPR and community defibrillators are life-saving on a number of occasions, especially in rural cases, as was noted by Christine Grahame and Liz Smith. It shows how those issues touch such a large number of people. Learning CPR could be one of the best things that everyone at home could do over the Christmas holidays. You never know when you may need it. For someone who has a cardiac arrest, their likelihood of survival decreases by up to 10 per cent every minute without intervention. Defibrillators may appear daunting and the word is difficult to say, but, importantly, you do not need training to use one. They give clear spoken instructions and you cannot accidentally shock anyone. The machine will only shock when it detects the target rhythm. Currently, less than 5 per cent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are received by standard intervention, yet I am sure that across the chamber we have read stories in the press of the incredible people who do step in and make that difference. I cannot stress that enough. Knowing what to do could save a life. Many communities across the country, including many in my central Scotland region, have fundraise to put defibrillators in key places. Unfortunately, many of those are not registered with the circuit. The circuit provides a national overview of where defibrillators can be found. The circuit connects defibrillators to NHS ambulance services so that, in crucial moments after a cardiac arrest, they can be accessed quickly to help to save lives. The circuit also does life-saving work, with regular reminders about maintenance. If communities know of a defibrillator that is not on the circuit, get in touch with the network and get it registered. Knowing where it is, it might help to save someone. I congratulate Jenny Mintle on the debate once again. Before I start, can I bring members' attention to my register of interests as a serving member of Western Barger Council? I begin my contribution by congratulating Jenny Mintle for scooting the member's debate. I know that this issue is very close to Jenny Mintle's heart. It is important that we take this opportunity to raise awareness of the need to have more accessible defibrillators in our communities. The British Heart Foundation pointed out that less than one in 10 people survive and out of hospital cardiac arrest. It is calling us to act to reduce two of the reasons for this tragic statistic. There are not enough people who feel prepared and confident to perform CPR, and there are not enough defibrillators. I have a strong interest in promoting the accessibility of this life-saving equipment in my role as a councillor on Western Barger Council, but also on a personal level, having lost my own father at 52 to a cardiac arrest. Had defibrillators been more readily available, it might have been a more positive outcome. In 2017, I was delighted to launch a campaign to help to compile a list of defibrillators that are available in public buildings, businesses, organisations and ownership of groups across Western Bartonshire. I was able to follow this up by securing £50,000 from the council and £25,000 from the Western Barger Health and Social Care Partnership. That funding has been used to secure that there is a good geographical spread of automatic external defibrillators throughout the local authority. I thank my colleagues on Western Barger Council for the cross-party support on this important issue. There are things that can unite us and the gains from this important work are there for all to see. In fact, in recent weeks, I chaired a meeting of the council's defibrillator working group, where we managed to secure another defibrillator for the Limveal community group in Clydebank. We will assist the group in getting this installed in a prominent position within the area. We have really experienced it on our working group, and it is its continuing efforts that are helping to save lives. On the working group, we have seen an elsin, a heart-start co-ordinator of Helmsbrit and local districts, a CPR defibrillator association, Dr Jan Cresham, who represents the Tropic Search and Rescue Service and I have developed the app, and Anne Harris from Scottish Ambulance Service. On that group, we have Brian Martin, who is now a retired paramedic in Brian Collapse, while playing football at the Scots and Leisure Centre, and owes his life to his colleagues from the Ambulance Service. Following successful fundraising events by Brian and his colleagues, a defibrillator had been installed in the centre just a matter of weeks prior to Brian's collapse. That very defibrillator was used to save Brian's life. My thanks also goes to my constituent, Norma Docherty, who lost her son to sudden arrhythmic death syndrome in 2011. Norma fund raised in her son's memory to install defibrillators in his former primary in high school. Overall, there are now 220 publicly accessible defibrillators across the area between Clydebank and the Gearluxide. Each defibrillator has a dedicated community garden who looks after it in checks that is in good working order. In addition, I commend the excellent work of the Magai community first responders. They are a volunteer group within the Magai and Bearsden area who respond to specific 999 calls prior to the arrival of an ambulance. With more than 600 call-outs to date, there is a lifeline service for our community and the drive to save lives. In conclusion, we all know about the serious levels of heart disease, and we all know that access to these machines can increase survival rates. To date, in western Barthenshire, 28 lives have been saved through publicly accessible defibrillators being installed throughout our communities, and 11 of them have been used during the lockdown. Our work has shown how important it is to take ownership of this issue. We know that it saves lives. I also take this opportunity to congratulate Heart Start, Helmsbury and local districts for winning the volunteer of the year award at the Scottish health award ceremony recently held in Edinburgh. Heart Start continues to deliver emergency life support and defibrillator awareness training. I am really proud of all the volunteers in my community who continue to work so hard and dedicate their time to this cause. It has been an honour and a privilege to share their experiences on their behalf in this Parliament. I would like to remind members of my register of interest that it shows that I am still a serving councillor at Aberdeen City Council. First, I thank Jenny Minto for bringing in this debate to Parliament tonight, and I really enjoyed your very powerful contribution. Like other members, I commend the work of community organisations and fundraising to purchase defibrillators. Likewise, the work of the British Heart Foundation and others has increased the number of defibrillators across Scotland. However, we must do all that we can to provide more support to ensure that the network of life-saving equipment is properly registered, checked and maintained. After all, that really is a matter of life or death, and that is the reason that I feel compelled to take part in the debate tonight. Earlier this year, a constituent of mine was in desperate need of a defibrillator. His son rushed to the defibrillator that they had in their local village, but for whatever reason it was not on the 999 or circuit system. He tried desperately to get it open, but without the code to unlock it, there was nothing he could do. He was tantalisingly close, and I cannot think of a crueler situation than that. Very tragically, my constituent passed away. He paid the ultimate price, losing his life, and his family are left with the tortuous traumatic thoughts of what if for the rest of their life. It is unacceptable that we only find out that defibrillators are not properly connected or maintained at the point when someone is calling 999 with a desperate medical need for it. At the moment, local authorities regularly check life rings to make sure that they are fit for purpose. I would like to say that the Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities or to community groups to allow them to carry out similar checks on a regular basis. Like a life ring, defibrillators are hopefully never needed, but in an emergency situation we need to know that the kit is available and works. At that point, it is too late if it is vandalised, broken or suffering from some other kind of fault. Like Jackie Dunbar, I welcome the fact that Aberdeen City Council is investigating the possibility of installing defibrillators to all schools and sheltered housing locations. It is a rare moment when all parties at Aberdeen agreed, but we certainly did at that time. As has been mentioned already, too many people are undiagnosed heart conditions that cause out-of-hospital heart attacks. Currently, as Jenny Minto said, only one in 10 people who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survive, and we must do more to prevent this, and we can. The work that small community groups have done to help fund defibrillators up and down our country deserves tremendous praise, but that is a huge problem and it needs the attention and resource of government bringing in recommendations from charities such as Heart Valve Voice and other heart disease specialists. Up present, too many lives are lost prematurely to heart disease in Scotland, and I hope that there are steps that this Government and everyone else can take to help to tackle that. Thank you very much indeed, Mr Lumsden. I now call the final speaker in the open debate, Rona Mackay, who joins us remotely. Four minutes, please, Ms Mackay. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank my colleague Jenny Minto for bringing this important debate to the chamber and for her moving opening speech. As we have heard from the excellent speeches across the chamber tonight, defibrillators save lives. That is clear. We know that if a defibrillator is required within three minutes of a cardiac arrest for it to be effective and that their availability is becoming widespread across the communities of Scotland, however we also know that people living in the least affluent areas of the country are 60 per cent less likely to survive than out of hospital cardiac arrest because defibrillators are not so available there, so more needs to be done to address that quickly. That is why the importance of the work of the British Heart Foundation in partnership with the Scottish Ambulance Service, the NHS and Microsoft in establishing the circuit, which, as we have heard tonight, is a map of Scotland's first network of defibrillators, and the importance cannot be overstated. We must raise awareness and education on defibrillator use, including the registration of all defibrillators on the circuit. Help the Scottish Ambulance Service know where they are in the event of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, because we know that early defibrillation can more than double a person's chances of survival from a cardiac arrest, but that many defibrillators are never used because, presently, emergency servers do not know where they are located. In Christmas day 1982, my dad collapsed with a cardiac arrest while out walking the dog near our home. A bus driver stopped to help him, but nothing could be done. Of course, I will never know if a defibrillator would have saved him, but there is every chance that it could have. That is why I am passionate about defibrillators expanding their use and getting them into as many communities as possible. All forms of public transport should carry them, and many already do. They should be available in sports clubs, supermarkets, high streets or any public space where they could be needed urgently. More importantly, let us get more defibrillators in areas of need, as I said earlier. That is absolutely vital. I completely agree with Jenny Minters' comment on planning regulations and new buildings for a defibrillator cabinet and to scrap the VAT. Surely that is not too much to ask. They are not expensive and are easy to maintain. They are also easy to operate, as I witnessed during a demonstration by St John's Ambulance in the village of Torrens in my constituency. St John's Ambulance and other charitable organisation help to save lives across Scotland by providing advice, training and funding to communities wishing to install a public access defibrillator. They can also give vital training and CPR, which in conjunction with the use of a defibrillator will give sufferers the absolute best chance of survival. They can also work with you to establish the best location for a defibrillator in your local area, give advice and fundraising and help with the costs. Every minute without cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation reduces the chance of survival by up to 10 per cent, which is why it is so important that there is quick access to defibrillators for the ambulance service. The registration on the circuit is absolutely essential. As we have heard, there are around 135,000 people alive in Scotland today who have survived a heart attack. Although the survivor rates are generally high, there are around 3,200 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Scotland each year, and the survival rate in those cases is only one in 10. Currently, less than 5 per cent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are received by standard defibrillation. That number will increase with more availability of defibrillators and more people crucially having the confidence to use them. I hope that this debate will help in that regard. Remember, tens of thousands of defibrillators are currently not known by ambulance service. Knowing a defibrillator's location can literally be the difference between life and death for someone who has suffered a cardiac arrest. Thank you. Thank you, Presiding Officer. First, I would like to express my gratitude to the member Jenny Minto for bringing forward this motion today. She made a speech as we have grown to expect from Ms Minto in this chamber and used her own personal experience to make a powerful point that we can all learn from. I am very grateful to her and I am great. I think that it is a brilliant tribute to Carl to raise his story in this chamber so that we can all learn from it. It gives us an opportunity to raise awareness more generally about the importance of defibrillator usage and registration. I want to commend the work of the British Heart Foundation on this issue and the Scottish Ambulance Service and other partners who are involved in developing the circuit. It is an important tool to support our aims of ensuring that defibrillators are as accessible as possible in times of need. Continuing that sentiment, I also extend my thanks to the many other organisations and individuals who have taken and continue to take action to improve the survival from cardiac arrest in Scotland. That includes those who deliver CPR training, anyone who takes up that training, and that is more than 640,000 people across Scotland since 2015, and people who raise funds for the placement of a defibrillator in their community, the emergency services who respond to instances of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and to anyone out there who has ever stepped in to help when witnessing someone experiencing a cardiac arrest. I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Heart Start group in Ms Minto's constituency of our Gail and Bute. They recently won a Scottish Health Award for their commitment to delivering CPR training in schools, workplaces and community settings. Since Save a Life Scotland, of which Scottish Government is a key member, published its first strategy in 2015, we have seen a significant increase in the number of people surviving a cardiac arrest. In 2015, around one in 20 people survived, now one in 10 do. That is incredible progress of which we should be extremely proud, but we know that we can do more to save lives. That is why the Save a Life for Scotland partnership refreshed its strategy this year, and the partners have now set the aim of further increasing survival to 15 per cent by 2026. From 5 per cent to 10 per cent, now we are aiming for 15 per cent. I want to draw the member's attention to two very important points about this strategy. The first is its focus on addressing inequalities, and a number of members raised that issue. The second is its focus on the importance of increasing defibrillation rates. While we rightly celebrate the improvements in survival since 2015, we are acutely aware that some people are less likely to survive than others. We know that people living in more economically deprived areas face substantial inequalities. They are more likely to have a cardiac arrest, and when they do, they are less likely to survive than people who live in less deprived areas. We also know that people living in rural areas are less likely to survive than those who live in urban areas, and we want to tackle those inequalities. That is why the refreshed strategy embeds a focus on working collaboratively with communities that deliver targeted work around awareness and training. As highlighted throughout the debate, the role that prompt defibrillation plays in the chain of survival is absolutely key. As part of the overall aim to increase survival, the refreshed strategy seeks to increase the number of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that have a defibrillator applied before the ambulance service arrives from 8 to 20 per cent. First, we are going to improve bystander confidence in them using them. Save a Life for Scotland is already working to achieve this through better embedding defibrillator usage into awareness raising campaigns and CPR training across Scotland. We also need to make sure that defibrillators are optimally placed and that they are as accessible as possible. On the issue that Mr Lumsden raised about the access codes for defibrillator cabinets, we would thoroughly recommend that defibrillator guardians follow the advice of the Resuscitation Council of the UK and consider placing their defibrillators in an unlocked cabinet to make them as accessible as possible. The RC UK highlights that, despite widespread use of unlocked cabinets, instances of theft and vandalism are, thankfully, relatively uncommon. Let me outline how the registration of defibrillators is crucial. Firstly, in an incident of cardiac arrest, it is important that the Scottish Ambulance Service call handler can quickly identify if there is a defibrillator nearby and then direct a bystander to collect it. Then they can talk them through applying it. This is only possible if the defibrillator is registered and therefore visible to the call handler. That is reason number one to register a defibrillator. It increases the likelihood that it will be used if a cardiac arrest occurs nearby. The second reason is that the registration of defibrillators will enable us to have an overview of the defibrillator footprint right across Scotland. We know that there are many defibrillators out there, but we could be better, and many of us have raised this. We could be better at making sure that they are placed in the areas where cardiac arrests are most likely to occur. That brings me back to the importance of addressing inequalities. We know that most incidences of cardiac arrests occur in areas that are less likely to have extensive defibrillator coverage. The registration of all of the defibrillators in Scotland would provide a wealth of evidence to support people and organisations in making informed decisions about where to place their life-saving device. That would help to ensure that their generous actions would be most likely to have the impact that they had intended. Rather than pursuing legislative routes in terms of mandating where defibrillators go, for example, in new buildings, we are really keen to continue the collaborative and partnership approach to improving outcomes from cardiac arrest, which has been so successful to date. However, in terms of building regulations, we are carrying out a review of permitted development rights at the moment. The PDR grant gives planning permission for forms of developing, removing the need to apply for such permission. As part of that review, we have committed to considering the case for introducing new and extended PDR for a wide range of development types, including defibrillator cabinets. At the moment, we have to apply for planning permission to place a defibrillator in an external area of building. We are consulting on whether that requirement should be removed. That consultation has been affected by the pandemic, but it remains part of our work plan and will be published in due course. On the issue of that, I am more than happy to write to the UK Government on that issue. I know from an answer given to a question in Westminster recently that there is already a vac relief scheme for the purchase of automated external defibrillators AEDs. That covers local authority purchase, eligible charities and the NHS, but it states in that answer that it keeps taxes under review and far better for me to defend them. There is a scheme there. I will absolutely lend my weight to anyone else in this chamber who wants to write and see if we can get that scheme extended to all purchases. To close, we have seen significant progress in survival from cardiac arrest over the past five years. It is a testament to many individuals and organisations. I remind you, as we have heard this evening, of many tragedies that have led people to campaign. I thank them for their work to date. I look forward to working together to continue progress. I also want to reiterate my thanks to the British Heart Foundation, the Scottish Ambulance Service and other partners for the development of the circuit. Finally, I want to offer my thanks to every defibrillator guardian in Scotland. Your actions play a vital part in helping to save lives from cardiac arrests. I will finish today by asking of them, have you registered yours yet? My apologies, Presiding Officer. I was so excited that we had cross-party support at Aberdeen City Council that I forgot to refer members to my register of interests that I am still a serving councillor at Aberdeen City Council.