Millie Thompson mother: School first aid 'should be compulsory'
The mother of a nine-month-old girl who died at a Stockport nursery has said first aid lessons should be compulsory for schoolchildren.
Millie Thompson died in October after choking at Ramillies Hall School and Nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport.
English schools have the option to teach first aid in their curriculum.
Millie's mother Joanne, who set up a charity promoting first aid in January, said she "cannot believe how little importance it is given in our system".
Under Department for Education guidelines, secondary schools can optionally offer basic first aid classes as part of Personal, Social, Health and Economic lessons, with resuscitation techniques offered to 14 to 16-year-olds.
Mrs Thompson, who set up Millie's Trust with her husband Dan, said she wanted to see the training become compulsory.
"It should be taught in schools too - there are countries in Europe that actually have this built into their curriculum already.
"First aid is massively important and I cannot believe how little importance it is given in our education system."
She added that the idea was to give "children, parents, grandparents and anybody who has any contact with a child at all" the skills to deal with an emergency.
"You should be taught these things when you are having a child and when you've had the child and you're coming out of hospital," she said.
Mr Thompson said they had set up the charity to "save lives and give people the awareness of what to do".
He said the charity had trained around 600 people in its first six months and "had about 50 stories come back where we've helped them save somebody".