Jamie Carragher has spoken of his hopes for the Oliver King Foundation after a 'refreshing' meeting with the Education Secretary.
Jamie and Mark King from the Oliver King Foundation meet with Nadhim Zahawi on Thursday, March 17 to discuss how they would ensure every school in the country has a life-saving defibrillator. The Oliver King Foundation was founded in 2012 after Mark's son Oliver died during a swimming race at school.
Oliver was just 12 when he died from Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome, a hidden heart condition which kills 12 young people a week. Oliver's parents have been campaigning for a change in the law to make defibrillators mandatory in all schools, with more than 60 lives being saved because of the charity's work so far.
READ MORE: Man shot dead in street was shown 'no mercy' in 'public execution'
Jamie got involved with the foundation around five years ago when Mark was delivering a defibrillator to his gym. They have since been working together on trying to save as many lives as possible.
Jamie said the Secretary of State for Education showed a "keen interest" in Oliver and Mark's story, and explained it was "refreshing" to see.
Jamie told The ECHO "It was really positive, it wasn't a case of us having to sort of argue our case when we went into the room. The feeling in the room as soon as we sat down with Nadhim and a few of his team, straight away it was almost like, yep we are delivering this, lets all work together.
"So the actual meeting and conversation was more about actually how we can deliver this, how we can work together to make this work, rather than us having to lobby in any way. It was fantastic for us to go in as it has gone on for a long time since we started.
"It was refreshing to see Nadhim Zahawi and actually just get it rubber stamped. Hopefully he will deliver on his words, I'm sure he will. He came across really well and seemed as passionate as ourselves in that room."
Over the last decade, the charity has placed 4,500 defibrillators in schools and organisations across the UK and trained 70,000 staff across the country in defibrillator awareness.
Jamie said: "Everytime Mark speaks to anybody, he's always banging the drum about this situation and defibrillators. He's always showing his passion about how important it is to get defibrillators, not just in schools, you want them everywhere basically just to help people."
Despite the positive conversation today, Jamie said he and Mark weren't getting their hopes up too soon.
He said: "I don't think myself or Mark will be getting too carried away, he wanted to make sure these were in schools up and down this country, so hopefully no other family would have to go through what his family went through when they got that call about their own son.
"I don't think myself and Mark would stop there. My drive is can we get these in sports centres, sports playing fields as there are lots of young people playing sport. I think it is imperative we have them here."
Speaking more about the future of his and Mark's work together for the Oliver King Foundation, Jamie mentioned a pilot scheme they had tried in Saint Robert Bellarmine Roman Catholic Primary School.
He said: "We did a pilot scheme in Saint Robert Bellarmine's in Bootle where we screened a class of 20 kids and I think one of them had an irregular heartbeat. Those kids who have that are more susceptible to having a cardiac arrest, but obviously they won't know until they have been screened.
"So maybe that's something we can look to do as well, so families of young people know that they may be more susceptible to it and be more educated."
