NORTH-EAST parents are being urged to improve their first aid skills after a survey showed that most would not know how to save their child's life.

The research, carried out by Mother and Baby magazine, found that more than eight in ten parents do not know simple first aid.

It also showed that 75 per cent of grandparents have never had any first aid training and two-thirds of parents did not think their child's carer would know what to do in an emergency.

A spokesman for St John Ambulance County Durham said he was horrified but not surprised by the findings.

He said: "We hold lifesaving baby and child courses which teach parents all the basic lifesaving skills, but we only hold four a year because there are so few people who want to do them.

"Most of those who do are childminders, which is encouraging, but we would like to see more parents with first aid skills.

"It only takes minimal knowledge to be able to help in an emergency and it could be someone in your family who is in trouble."

Every year, more than half a million children under five need to go to casualty after accidents at home, and 100 die.

The survey of 2,000 parents found that only 14 per cent felt they knew enough first aid to save the life of their child.

More than a third of parents had seen their child choking and 70 per cent of them did not know what to do.

Overall, 81 per cent of mothers said being a parent was more worrying than they had imagined and 73 per cent said worrying about their child's safety was stressful.

Eleven per cent said their child had knocked themselves out and 82 per cent did not know how to handle the situation.

Ironically, older children are more likely to know what to do than their parents.

Several North-East schools run first aid training. Youngsters at Hurworth Comprehensive, near Darington, hold an annual social, moral, spiritual and cultural day that includes lessons in first aid.

Dani Zur, editor of Mother and Baby, said: "It is shocking that so few parents know how to help their child and we hope this survey will be a wake-up call to parents.

"Learning basic lifesaving techniques should be top of every parent's list of priorities."