ALMOST two thirds of Scots believe it should be mandatory to learn life-saving skills in school.

A poll by the British Heart Foundation found 65% of respondents were in favour of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training being part of the school curriculum.

Cardiac arrest outside of hospital is the commonest life-threatening medical emergency. However, of the 3,500 people living in Scotland, only around 1 in 20 survives.

Almost four in 10 people (37%) who took part in the poll had no training in the life-saving skill.

The Evening Times has launched a campaign calling on Glasgow City Council to lead the UK by becoming the first local authority to make CPR training mandatory in all of its secondary schools.

The charity has pledged to equip all schools with a £1300 kit, which requires no teacher training. Figures show the majority of schools already have a kit but it is currently up to individual schools if they wish to train pupils.

Mandatory training would ensure that the majority of pupils in Glasgow leave school with the life-saving skill.

More cardiac arrests happen in Glasgow than anywhere else in Scotland because of the deprivation link.

However, research shows people from deprived areas are less likely to have learned CPR. There is also a lower response rate where there is a large proportion of ethnic minority groups.

In Glasgow, 18.6% of pupils are from an ethnic minority, the highest of any local authority in Scotland.

Figures by the British Heart Foundation, which supplies free kits to schools on request, show at least nine Glasgow schools in some of the city’s more deprived areas do not have a kit - around 6,303 pupils.

David McColgan, Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager at BHF Scotland, said: “CPR can be the difference between life and death for hundreds of people every year who suffer a cardiac arrest.

“Every second counts, and it simply isn’t enough to hope that someone who knows CPR is present.

“The best place to start with learning CPR is in schools and we believe that every child should have to learn the skills that could, ultimately, save the life of a loved one.”

A total of 1,088 people were surveyed for the poll which founds sixty two per cent of respondents had been on a CPR training course but nearly four in ten people (37%) admitted they did not have CPR skills.

BHF Scotland is working with the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland, as a partner of Save a Life for Scotland, to deliver Scotland’s Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) Strategy which aims to equip an additional 500,000 people with CPR skills by 2020.