Caroline Smith’s 16-year-old son Ben, a pupil at King Edward VI School in Southampton, was out running in May 2017 when his heart went into an abnormal rhythm and he collapsed.
Now Ben’s former school has been offering pupils heart checks.
“If this sort of testing had been taking place and students were tested as a national programme, those problems would have been caught.
“During the first screening like this, 210 students were tested and five were sent for referral, and unknown to them they had a heart condition they didn’t know they had.”
All individuals receive an electrocardiogram (ECG) that examines the electrical activity of the heart, and if required, an echocardiogram, as well as a physical examination.
