SECONDARY-school students across Keighley are once again being given the chance to learn lifesaving skills.

Restart a Heart Day, which has proved popular with district schools in the past, is poised to return this year.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service says it hopes an easing of Covid-19 restrictions in the coming months will enable the initiative, which teaches young people cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), to take place face-to-face – alongside online training.

The venture is planned for Friday, October 15.

And schools are being urged to sign-up now.

To make the sessions more accessible to all secondary schools, Yorkshire Ambulance Service has developed a new training aid – the Pillow Partner – to enable those without manikins to practise hands-only CPR.

The pillow cases are printed with a torso and basic CPR instructions and can be used alongside a new training video.

There is a suggested £2 donation for each pillow case, with all proceeds going to the ambulance service charity which sponsors the campaign.

Jason Carlyon, community engagement manager with Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said: “We are hopeful that we’ll be able to return to Yorkshire’s secondary schools this year to provide face-to-face CPR training – Covid-19 restrictions permitting – and we will also be offering online sessions for those who would prefer to learn virtually.

“We are also delighted to launch our new training aid. The Pillow Partner is a simple, effective and inexpensive way of practising CPR. By removing the barriers of cost and availability associated with the traditional training manikins, we aim to make CPR training more accessible to all with the target of improving cardiac arrest survival rates.”

Over 30,000 people in the UK suffer a cardiac arrest, outside a hospital environment, every year and currently less than nine per cent survive.

The earlier a patient can receive CPR and a shock from a defibrillator, the greater their chance of survival.

Restart a Heart Day is organised in conjunction with the Resuscitation Council (UK), the British Heart Foundation and St John Ambulance.

For more details and to sign-up, visit restartaheart.yas.nhs.uk.