Hi,

I am wondering if any people who teach at home make sure they are qualified first aiders? Is it something that we all should be?

If so, can anyone recommend which courses are the best ones to go on - I have found ones that last one day and then there are others that last 4 days.

I am interested in becomming one anyway but just wondered if it something I should have been for a while??

Many thanks
Vicki1433

I was a qualified first aider for several years when I worked in an office, and prior to that I had completed 3 years out of a 3 year 8 month course in general/paediatric nursing. The courses I attended were put on by the Red Cross, and St John Ambulance also put on excellent courses.
This is a really good point - thank you for raising it - and it also leads on to should we have first aiders at any concerts we put on? Mine regularly have 180 in the audience. Luckily I have three nurses , four St John Ambulance volunteers and their District Commissioner as students, without counting any who might be in the audience!
(And if there's trouble we have at least two policemen and a prison officer who has done riot training to sort them out )

I went on a Red Cross day course. There was a lot of information but far too much teacher talking. The afternoon session was 2 hours' listening with very, very little doing, I'm afraid. I felt I could have read it up instead, and might have retained more than the amount that went in through my ears. I went home and wrote down as much of it as I could remember, and am about to re-read the notes because I have forgotten a lot of it. I dare say the quality of the course depends on the person running it.

I think it's a good idea - I've often thought about it but never found the time to do anything about it. Now I just rely on having had 2 children and life experience!

I really see no need for a teacher to be first aid qualified. So long as they know about any conditions that the student has an if X happens please do Y.

I am sure that if a student collapses on the floor you do not need a first aid certificate to check their pulse and call 999.

Maybe buy a first aid book? You have no legal obligation to qualify, it`s purely a personal thing.

As soon as you step into help with first aid, you become personally liable, so make sure you have public liability insurance. Liked AnneC's comment about police officers and such like ready to sort out audience trouble.

Having seen some first aiders in action, I'm not so sure that the standard qualifications available out there are necessarily up to much: so no, I don't think qualifications as such are really needed for a teacher more than for any other career: however, on a purely social basis, I think there very much is a case for all of us to learn how to do the basics - calling 999 in a rural area will get help, sure, but only twenty or more minutes down the line, by which time it'd be too late for the unfortunate victim of a cardiac arrest. I didn't realise until I was having to attend CPD sessions at work how well I'd been taught as a child - basic resuscitation training was a key part of learning to swim in my school. In retrospect I'd like to have seen that be extended to management of diabetics in hypoglycæmia, and of epileptic fits and minor injuries too - and I really do think that this could usefully be taught to everyone, and wouldn't take a hugely long time to learn. One of the worst things which happens when medical emergencies happen is that people panic and flap, and then do things which at best are not helpful and at worst downright dangerous.

How often would any of us expect to come across such situations? I'm no ambulance-chaser, but in the last ten years I've stopped to help two cyclists who've been knocked off their bikes, have directed traffic around and quickly assessed two pedestrian accidents (in one case, the other person who stopped to help asked me was I a physician, and when I admitted I was, and asked him if he was too, it turned out that a GP and a professor of tropical medicine had stopped for what was patently a broken leg ), and assessed and given advice to someone overwhelmed by the heat this summer......as well as having to deal with the usual knocks and tumbles one can expect of one's sprogs . None of these situations arose near me just because I'm a doc, I was just there at the time, which is why I think it'd be best for all of us to know what to do.

That's one of the main reasons I volunteered to become a first aider at work. If something were to happen, then I don't want to sit here doing nothing. I want to do something useful. And to do something useful, you need to know what the right thing is to do.
Mostly it's just cuts and the occasional trip, but there's been one 'collapsed lady' [it was a faint] and one 'heart problems' [it was palpitations due to a panic attack].

I did the 4-day course for the proper First Aid At Work qualification, followed by a 2-day top-up every three years; although our company also has update training, 8-ish sessions per year, we must attend 4 of them, so we are kept up to date well (usually at the re-qualification training, we get told that they can tell very easily when testing us if we come from one of the companies that has regular update sessions!)
My husband's company is very small - there are four or five of them in the office - so they have an 'appointed person' which is only a one day course.