To think basic healthcare should be taught in schools?

[Thriwit]

I guess as part of PSHE or whatever?
And/or there could be community classes or even online courses for anybody?

There just seems to be a lack of basic healthcare knowledge nowadays. Just things like treating a minor cut, burn, bruise, or sprain; dealing with a sore throat, fever, headache, acid reflux, constipation; recognising and treating minor childhood illnesses etc. When to go to a pharmacist, doctor, A&E…

I suppose decades of free healthcare means that as a society we’re now used to
just pleading ignorance and seeing a doctor for everything, rather than just treating minor issues at home. A little more knowledge would hopefully empower people to be able to look after themselves better, and hopefully reduce unnecessary visits to GPs and hospitals.

I am guessing that SureStart would have done some of this back in the day.

Are First Aid courses not available any more ?

I think that to fit in everything suggested is put on the curriculum, teachers should collect newborns as soon as they're born and drop them back home aged about 21.

The primary curriculum does include basic first aid, cuts grazes and burns, choking, CPR, healthy diets, dental health etc. parents should probably take some responsibility too...

Why schools? Why not at home? We can’t load everything onto schools. Parents bear some responsibility for educating children!

A brilliant plan, it's the only solution. 🤣

Schools do teach about healthy eating and living and medical staff ('People who help us' topic') so do touch on when to visit a doctor and the balance of foods and the benefits of exercise.

Sadly, something would have to be dropped in order for us to also teach first aid as part of the curriculum. Music? Art?

I strongly suspect many parents here don't actually like having kids because why else would they be suggesting additions to curriculum which would, if even 1% was implemented, mean kids will be at school from 8am to 8pm

🤣re in loco parents till 21

Sure start def did this hack in the day. I had a friend who took her PFB to the doc every time she sneezed and she was offered a course. She didn't go but the education was there and available

This is more logical than.the OP who wanted schools to teach basic car maintenance 🙈

I remember st John's ambulance coming into school once a year to show us what to do in a few emergencies. Fire service too for basic safety guidance. Maybe they're under too much pressure and don't have enough funding anymore, it's a shame though.

They do already.
Plus there's that Dr Ranj programme on Cbeebies for the little ones and Operation Ouch on CBBC for the older kids.

Is there anything left that parents think is for them to do?

I know I know I know not all parents are equipped themselves to pass on knowledge but the answer to that can’t just be that schools do it all!

I don’t think most people would see a doctor for things like bruises or minor cuts and burns would they? I think a bruise would have gone by the time I managed to get an appointment to see my GP.

My daughter who is 4 has been taught dental hygiene by her CM when she was just over a year, her nursery when she joined when she was 3 and again this year.

Each time she has arrived home with a toothbrush and toothpaste.

When she arrived back from her CM's I was like 😮 then I remembered I had read one of my SIL's who use to work in a SureStart centre stuff.

My kids go to school to learn maths, English, science etc. As their parent it's my job to teach them life skills. YABU.

Then they could go straight to bed and hopefully children's/youth crime figures would go down as those who weren't in school could be picked up.

Why can't you teach your kids this yourself?

I don't recognise the picture you paint of people running to the doctor for the slightest sniffle. For a start, how would they even get an appointment. I also wish people would stop blaming the public for the state of the NHS, because we don't use it 'properly'. Well, I suppose the state of the NHS IS the fault of the public for voting Tory, we get what we vote for. I remember when I was a child in the 1970s/80s this seemed to be much for of a think, antibiotics to treat every cold.

I had a Ukrainian and her child living with us for a while, she had much easier access to doctors and dentists in Ukraine than we have here. She was shocked at the state of the NHS and I was embarrassed. In fairness though, the treatment she was used to sounded very dated and similar to 1970s Britain, slightest sniffle and you see a doctor immediately and are given antibiotics.

DD is 8yo, she's done some basic first aid at school and at Brownies. Anything else she needs to know about injuries she'll pick up from us or just from life.

We were taught how to wash our hands properly at primary school, a long time before they started putting up posters in loos and the like.
It stayed with me, and I'm grateful for being taught it.

Some parents are clueless. My parents never even told me about periods or bought me sanitary products or a bra etc.

But all this is information widely available eg online. Community classes already exist. I’ve never done a healthcare course but if I want to know how to treat chicken pox or a sore throat or whatever and I don’t already know then I look on the nhs website. I don’t go to the doctors, I’d never get in the door!

I really would prefer schools focused on actual teaching and learning of eg maths and English. It’s like the thread about “why don’t schools teach kids how to identify birds eggs” - they don’t have time and it’s not their core purpose.

Or by parents.... there's a thought!

I think maybe 25 - let them get them PHDs first, after all they will have had a super selective, Russell Group education by then.

If British parents just took a bit of responsibility for shaping and teaching their children I think that would be a more positive move.