UKC

Hi,

With being a kind and caring person I volunteered to be a "First Aider at Work", however my current Outdoor Industry First Aid qualification is not valid/they dont recognise it - so work are sending me on a St John's 3 day Initial First Aid at Work Course - does anyone know if its going to be teaching me to suck eggs - if so Coffee at the ready then.

Thanks

In reply to Boulderdash86: Yes! Mate of mine did it about a month ago. Very boring, he said. Guess it depends a bit on who the tutor is, though.
Jerry

In reply to Boulderdash86: I did mine last year... the instructor was a knob with no real life first aid experience. 3 days of my life i will never get back.. but.. did i learn anything???? did i ff..........

In reply to quirky:

I did my First Aid in the Workplace 10 years ago. At the time I was taught by an ex-police man and found the whole 4 days very entertaining as well as leaning loads of stuff.

You'd be surprised how good these coursed are and how well they distil the essential information into a few days.

St John's are a very good and professional organisation with or without the salaried staff.

In reply to Boulderdash86: If you work in the outdoor industry (Outdoor Centre etc) then the First Aid at Work course is probably of limited use. A major problem (for many sectors) is that the FAW legislation handed down by HSE was designed for factories etc and does not permit any content to be added or omitted from the course. It MUST be delivered exactly as it is prescribed. This means that you MUST NOT be taught or practice child CPR or choking, nor cover any childrens' illnesses.

If you work in an Outdoor Centre I would suggest these are pretty much essential. This also an issue for schools etc.

There are significant changes in the pipeline for FAW but may not be fully implemented for a couple of years which will hopefully do away with this problem (amongst others). In the meantine an Outdoor First Aid certificate (16 hours) is likely to be the best option which even though it covers much more than the FAW and takes the remote environment into account cannot be called First Aid at Work because it has too much content in it. You can however have an Emergency First Aid at Work certificate with it.

Look at www.lancashirefirstaid.co.uk

In reply to Hillwalker:

I think that depends on your place of work. I did my WAF course a couple of weeks ago, and child CPR was covered and practiced, but not assessed. We have a nursery on site though.

The bulk of mine was CPR, then a bit on the recovery position and applying bandages/dressings. The course only covered large wounds, nothing about dressing small cuts. The powers that be won't let me have steri-strips or adhesive tape either, I'm going to feel sorry for whoever end up with a huge wound dressing for a small cut! The basis of it was really 'do this, listen to the ambulance controller and wait for help'.

I'm looking at doing an outdoors specific course this year, the FAW course assumes help is always available and will reach you quickly.

In reply to Hillwalker:

BASP do a HSE recognised course: http://www.basp.org.uk/course-info.php

In fact I'm doing my revalidation at the Lodge this weekend.

In reply to Boulderdash86:

I've been doing First Aid courses for years and yes, my re-quals do cover the same stuff again, but it's worth paying attention, as they do slightly change the content/procedures now and then.

If nothing else, consider it useful CPR practice and hope you get some cuties to practice putting slings on

In reply to jdawg_85: There are lots of providers who break the regulations, which is one of the main reasons why new legislation is coming out this year. The FAW Certificate is concerned only with employees in the workplace, and children are not employees. The HSE and the First Aid at Work legislation is what it says on the box - 'AT WORK'.

In reply to Craig Mc: Yes they do, as does virtually every First Aid training provider, but it MUST be the prescribed HSE approved content course, they must not add anything to it and must not leave anything out, otherwise it is not the prescribed HSE FAW course. You will note that none of their other courses, which probably have more content and are probably much more appropriate for the ski industry, are not HSE courses.

FAW and EFAW are the only courses that meet the HSE requirements and for many workplaces they are quite inappropriate. Unfortunately Joe Public thinks that if they are 'HSE Approved' they must be the best, when in reality that is not the case, they are in fact pretty minimalist.