When we go on holiday with our family to beach resorts, we are entitled to expect a certain level of standard of health and safety and a duty of care from local authorities.

Sadly, that was completely lacking in the tragic case of Carl Thompson, who died after getting into difficulty on a beach on the island of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.

An inquest into his death was told yesterday that panicked lifeguards tried to use a defibrillator that had a missing battery pack, and that it took 50 minutes for a second one to be brought to the beach – and that too proved faulty.

This kind of inadequate equipment and lack of training is simply unacceptable.

And coroner Martin Fleming is right to call on the Spanish authorities in the resort of Corralejo to learn lessons from the poor equipment and the ill-prepared lifeguards.

There should be a uniform level of safety provision at all beaches that purport to be family and holidaymaker friendly.

Tragedies do happen on beaches – they can happen anywhere where water is involved – but countries like Spain make a huge amount of money from the tourism industry, and they should be ensuring safety is paramount for all holidaymakers.

Mr Thompson’s family should have been able to be told that everything possible was done to save him. Instead, he and they were let down by woefully inadequate equipment and a lack of lifeguard training.

This is something that cannot be allowed to happen to another family in future.