This October has seen the biggest shake-up of First Aid legislation since 1981, with the Health and Safety Executive withdrawing from the approval of first aid courses.
But do you know what it means for you?
In the past, you could be assured that your HSE-accredited training provider had gone through rigorous checks to ensure that they were fit to run first aid courses on your behalf. In a sense, the HSE had already done due diligence on training providers, meaning that you didn’t have to.
As of 1st October, all that has changed.
Training providers can now choose their own path of quality control and accreditation, and you, as the employer, must decide which providers are good enough, and which are not.
Training providers will run courses which are either:
- Voluntary Accreditation Scheme Courses
- Voluntary Aid Society Courses
- Unregulated Courses
Formally Regulated Qualifications
These are operated under rigorous accreditation schemes, recognised by regulators such as Ofqual, the SQA and the Welsh Government.
HTS Training opted to follow this route of accreditation, as we believe that it gives by far the greatest assurance of high standards of training for our customers.
Voluntary Accreditation Scheme Courses
As the name suggests, these are schemes that are operated by a variety of the first aid industry bodies. These bodies have set up their own monitoring and quality control schemes which members are required to abide by.
Voluntary Aid Society Courses
The Red Cross and St John Ambulance continue to run first aid training courses which are considered to be of suitable quality for employers.
Unregulated Courses
It will be possible for trainers to set up unregulated, and carry out their own quality control.
It will be up to employers to investigate whether their training is of a sufficiently high standard in advance of the training, and to prove this level of due diligence should anything subsequently go wrong.
In all cases, the HSE remains the organisation who sets the syllabus in conjunction with Skills for Health for core first aid at work training courses.
If you have any questions at all, please feel free to call us on 01234 308 740, or get in touch via our contact page.
