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This years Bupa Foundation Communication award winner was announced last week at an awards ceremony in London. Saving Londoners' Lives, a London-wide partnership programme teaching children as young as five life saving skills won the 2009 award, plus prize money of £15,000. The communication award is run in association with PiF.

The Saving Londoners' Lives partnership programme was recognised for developing the Saving Londoners' Lives programme, which teaches primary and secondary school pupils across London emergency life support skills with no cost to the schools. Thanks to the programme the number of people in the capital with emergency life support skills will increase, boosting Londoners' chances of survival in a life threatening situation. 

Dr Gillian Schiller, programme lead for Saving Londoners' Lives said: "Emergency life support can make the difference between life and death, as immediate CPR given to a cardiac arrest victim can more than double their chance of survival; however, only 21 percent of Londoners have had any CPR training in the last five years.

"That is why Saving Londoners' Lives, which is a partnership programme between St John Ambulance, the British Heart Foundation, the NHS, the London Ambulance Service, London medical schools and the Mayor of London, is so important. It provides teachers free instructor training in emergency life support skills so that they can then teach to their pupils with help from medical students. To date, Saving Londoners' Lives is running in 150 London schools, with over 80,000 students on their roll. We hope that one day the programme will become a compulsory part of the school curriculum."