A housebuilder has donated £5,000 to Wiltshire Air Ambulance to support more than 1,500 school children to learn vital emergency skills.

Persimmon Homes Wessex has given the funds through its Community Champions scheme, which donates up to £750,000 a year to good causes across Great Britain.

The money will be used to support Wiltshire Air Ambulance’s Emergency Awareness Training programme which provides interactive training sessions for children at primary and secondary schools and delivers a range of lifesaving skills across the county.

Since its inception in 2019, the programme has reached over 25,000 schoolchildren across Wiltshire and Bath, teaching them skills such as how to make a 999 call, perform CPR, manage an unconscious patient, and assist a person who is choking.

Wiltshire Air Ambulance’s deputy director of income generation Rebecca de la Bedoyere said: “We are very grateful to Persimmon Homes Wessex for supporting our vital work in schools.

“Even though we can reach anywhere in Wiltshire in 11 minutes and the centre of Bath in just four minutes, it is usually a member of the public who is first at the scene.

“Our Emergency Awareness Training gives young people the skills, knowledge and confidence to act in an emergency, so that if they are ever at the scene of an incident, they could make a lifesaving difference.”

Wiltshire Councillor Dominic Muns said: “The initiative is hugely important and has already had a profound impact across Wiltshire, reaching over 25,000 children and providing them with vital knowledge on how to manage in a medical emergency."