First Aid Training

[K9medic]

I make my living teaching first aid and pre-hospital care. Lots of people ask us for advanced courses, but unless they have already got the basic skills at a high standard they miss a lot from the more advanced courses. There for for those people with little or no knowledge or skills in the first aid field I would suggest a good starting point would be:

Emergence First Aid at Work (1 day) or First Aid at Work (a further 2 days),
Emergency Paediatric First Aid (1 Day) / Paediatric First (1 Day).

Some of the companies offer a combined First Aid at Work & Paediatric First Aid Course, usually running over 4 days, but it gives you the best of both courses.

Another good option would be the Outdoor First Aid Course (2 Days), this teaches the basic skills, but with the idea that help is further away.

All the above courses are available with a RQF certificate, so they are nationally recognised and should cost around the £60 - £75 / day mark at today's prices (depending on location too). I honestly could not tell you how many different companies teach these courses, but it is definitely in the hundreds.

After that you have the option of bolt-on courses, such as the epi-pen for anaphylaxis or more advanced fractures. Some of these will have nationally recognised certificates and some will have a certificate just from the trainer. Don't discount training purely because it does
not have a nationally recognised certificate, there are a lot of independent trainers out there delivering excellent courses.

Paediatric First Aid (Blended course, 1 day practical, online module) in my area Surrey/North Hampshire costs around £95. Cheaper now than it was in the past when we had to do a 2 day practical - I work in childcare and do these courses every 3 years and have done so for about 30 years now! My first course I recall was an Appointed Persons course (I think it was called) and was many weeks of evening class, with a motor vehicle accident simulation at the end.

Would be good if more people knew some basic first aid and it is good to see that there are now courses aimed at new parents.

@K9medic do you recommend any online (YouTube maybe?) stuff that’s good for refreshers or additional knowledge.

I have previously done 5 day Red Cross first aid, plus Paediatric and St Johns emergency first aid, but it was a couple of years ago and not using it means I’m rusty. Also I would be interested in any online survival/outdoor emergency stuff that can compliment those with basic training.

Thank you (:

@LittleMissPreppy Technically we call that Continuing Professional development (CPD) and it’s the bane of my life. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy learning new skills, its just recording it for work that is the pain.

It rather depends on what you want to brush up on, I tend to look at the Pre-hospital stuff, especially the prolonged field care side of things.

As a starting point on YouTube I tend to follow the following;

Prepmedic – good reviews of equipment + some training on slightly more advanced skills such as taking and recording vital signs.

Skinnymedic – really interesting reports and reviews on after action incidents (warning some of his videos can be graphic)

ProTrainings – video tutorials of basic skills.

STC Training Solutions – bit more the ambulance / pre-hospital side of things (Conflict of interest here, I have attended courses with these people and I highly rate the training).

Off YouTube I highly rate anything by Adam Gent over at Real First Aid (www.realfirstaid.co.uk/ look under resources). Adam’s stuff is well researched and tends to be aimed at the outdoor or expedition first aid.

Ah that’s brilliant thank you very much. I have access to the NHS and SJA training portals but I wanted to add a bit of variety to keep it interesting (: