Can you do CPR and use a defibrillator? 

I couldn’t, but this week I was trained to do both with Welsh Hearts in a meeting Room in Parliament. Welsh Hearts had come to explain to MPs from across Wales why public access defibrillators are so important in saving lives. Learning how to administer CPR and use the defibrillator was so straightforward, I felt guilty that I had not learned how to do this before.

Heart failure and cardiac arrests are a major killer in Wales. They are often associated with older people but undiagnosed heart conditions can kill apparently healthy young people and children too. And of course, someone can suffer a cardiac arrest anywhere at anytime. It can take just a few minutes for the brain to be fatally starved of oxygen so the speed at which someone is given emergency resuscitation by CPR and a defibrillator is critical.

The Welsh Hearts charity has helped to place 853 defibrillators in Welsh communities, 30,524 people have been trained in CPR and they have helped set up a heart screening programme which has already seen 1400 18 – 35 year olds to detect heart abnormalities. The charity is also endorsed by the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust and every police force in Wales.

The Welsh Government is also working hard in this area, recognising that a person’s chance of survival drops by 10% for every minute they are in an out of hospital cardiac rest. A new ambulance response system has been trialled targeting the most serious cases, which has had a positive effect on response times. Welsh Hearts are keen that all children learn these first aid techniques and the Welsh Government has been promoting first aid training in schools and across services.

Welsh Hearts’ work means that more defibrillators can be placed in more communities and more people can be trained to give life saving emergency resuscitation. 

I hope I won’t ever be in a situation where someone’s life is about to be lost, but now I have learnt these new skills I will be ready to use them.

Together with over 120 MPs I've written to David Davis, the Brexit Secretary asking him to publish the findings of an analysis the government has carried out on what the impacts of leaving the European Union will be on 50 sectors of the economy. 

Despite numerous questions from MPs and repeated Freedom of Information requests the Government has refused to release them. With the parlous state of the negotiations between the UK and the European Union, the likelihood of us leaving the EU in March 2019 without any deal and little or no information about what it is expected this will mean for our economy, jobs and future seems more probable.

We need to know and understand the risks we imminently face. By withholding the information, the Tory government is unnecessarily adding to peoples' uncertainty and worry about what is ahead of us. This government secrecy also gives the Tory hard Brexiteers free reign to spread their claims about life post Brexit uncontested by proper evidence.  

We need to know what risks the Government knows it is running, and the sooner we know the better. The clock is ticking.

The letter is reproduced below; 

Yes, fight to save your library, but don't forget the real reason why it's under threat.

Since the start of the 2010 Lib Dem Tory coalition government,  libraries across the country have been faced with closure.

This Libraries Week I'm celebrating our local libraries in Cardiff Central.

Libraries are one of society's great equalisers. They bring knowledge, for free, to anyone who seeks it.

In the days of miners' welfares they gave young workers the tools to learn philosophy, history, science or anything else they wanted to alongside the trade they earned a living from.

During the difficult times, and the recessions, libraries are there to give people of all ages access to information and support to help train, learn and find their way in the world.

Where can you go to use the internet for free? Or to use a printer? The library. This is a facility that's invaluable to thousands of people every day.

Added to this libraries are community hubs – with coffee mornings, story sessions for parents and children, newspapers, music and these days 3D printing and video games. They’re places where people come together, meet and share.

So why are we losing them?

It’s easy to look on and suggest that people just don't value their libraries enough but I think we can all see that's just not true.

Unfortunately austerity politics from UK governments hell bent on destroying the state and the services we rely on have led to huge budget cuts handed down by the UK government, first by the Lib Dem Tory coalition and since 2015 by the Tories. Wales has lost £1 billion of funding in real terms, with Cardiff Council having to make up losses of around £200million over the last ten years.

Despite this in Cardiff over the first six months of this year 1.2 million million visits were made to Cardiff's libraries, with 23% of the city's population (about 80,000 people) borrowing books.

In Cardiff Central the fantastic community campaigners of Cyncoed stood up for Rhydypennau Library in the face of cuts that threatened it with closure. It's become a thriving venue, hosting not just reading clubs but many other events and the campaign has brought the whole of the community together.

In Roath the library building which had been left to fall into disrepair by the previous Lib Dem council administration had to be closed, but Cardiff's Labour Council have stepped in and made sure a library service is there for Adamsdown, in the Cardiff Royal Infirmary's former chapel.

With councils like Cardiff under so much pressure to operate on ever-decreasing budgets it's a desperate challenge to keep libraries and community spaces open but I'm proud that we've done so well in Cardiff and will continue to fight hard to keep our libraries.

I hold regular surgeries in libraries and library hubs in Cyncoed, Plasnewydd, Llanedeyrn and Cathays and they're always bustling community hubs.

Long may they continue.