Help First Aid Training News

Cycle to your First Aid Training

New Shildon to Aycliffe Multi-User Path

Construction seems well underway on a new multi-user path linking Newton Aycliffe and Shildon. The path runs alongside the railway line linking the two towns and brings you out at the end of the road where our training centre is based. Designed to be shared by walkers, cyclists and horse riders, the new track should be perfect for those travelling for first aid training from Newton Aycliffe who want to take the healthy transport option.

The photo was taken today, showing the end of the path nearest Shildon station. In total, it’ll be around two miles long when complete.

First Aid Course Dates for 2013

For those that like to plan ahead or maybe have staff with a first aid qualification expiring later this year, we’ve just loaded dates for our next six months of first aid courses in County Durham (Shildon) and Newcastle (North Shields) to our new course calendar.

Just as a reminder, HSE guidance states that all First Aid at Work qualified staff should attend a two day requalification every three years. Attendees of the one day Emergency First Aid at Work course should attend that same course every three years.

The HSE also strongly recommend an annual half day refresher to keep skills up to date.

You can see our first aid course calendar here.

Defibrillator Training for Spennymoor Staff

Last week saw the successful completion of another Defibrillator Training Course, this time for Livin at Spennymoor. The course included training Livin staff on using an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) and also basic CPR.

We’ve seen a rapid increase in enquiries for defib training and machines from north east companies over the last 6 months and have now tied up with a national company to supply new and reconditioned defibrillators at the best possible prices.

Correct use of defibrillators can vastly improve the chances of surviving a cardiac arrest and it’s great to see from the number of enquiries coming in that interest in training staff in using AEDs is increasing.

You can find more details of the training we offer on our Automated External Defibrillator course page.

Easy Directions to our First Aid Courses

You can now get customised driving directions to our new Newcastle area first aid courses and our County Durham HQ via a quick lookup on our training venues pages. Just pop your address or postcode in the panel on the right of those pages for a quick route lookup.

You can find the pages for our two regular training locations here: Newcastle Area (North Shields) and County Durham. Remember that we can also run bespoke first aid training on site at your own workplace or location.

Help First Aid Training expand into Newcastle and Tyneside

Help First Aid training have been delivering H.S.E approved first aid courses across the North East for the past 3 years. We are pleased to announce that from January 2013 we will be delivering open courses every month from our new training facility in North Shields.

Open courses at our training facility in Shildon County Durham have proved very popular over the past 3 years.

We believe that running Emergency First Aid at Work, First Aid at Work and Refresher First Aid at Work courses in North Shields every month will allow us to offer our First Aid Training to more businesses in the Newcastle and Tyneside areas.

Full details of our North Shields training venue »

New Health and Safety Courses

We’ve just added four new health and safety training courses to our portfolio. These are:

Food Safety Level 1
Food Safety Level 2
Health and Safety Level 1
Health and Safety Level 2

All of the new courses lead to nationally recognised HABC awards and can be run at our own training facility, within easy reach of the Darlington, Bishop Auckland and Durham areas or on site at your workplace.

To book, please call 01388 417303 or contact us via our online contact form.

First Aid Kit Contents for the Workplace

We’re often ask what should be included in a workplace first aid kit. There’s no mandatory list for the contents of a first aid box and the decision should really take into account the findings of your first aid needs assessment. As a rough guide though, where the work activity is deemed to be low hazard, common items include:

• Elastoplasts/sterile plasters – various sizes.
  Buy decent ones that actually stick and use the blue ones if you work with food. Uses include: small cuts, burst spots and anything small that needs covering.
• Wound dressings/bandages – medium and large.
  For larger cuts.
• Crepe bandage.
  Particularly useful for sprained ankles at the office Christmas Disco.
• Triangular bandages.
  For elevating arms.
• 2 sterile eye patches.
  Keep them sterile and use for eye injuries. Don’t hand them out on national ‘talk like a pirate’ day.
• Antiseptic wipes
• A pair of disposable gloves
• Scissors
• Safety pins
• Eye wash.
  If there’s tap water to hand, that can be used, otherwise it’s a good idea to keep eye wash available (at least a litre of sterile water or normal saline (0.9%) in sealed, disposable containers).
• A guidance leaflet on first aid (such as the leaflet Basic Advice on First Aid at Work, available from the HSE on-line store)
• A container to keep the contents clean and dry. It’s also important that this can be clearly identify it as a first aid kit.
  The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard is that first aid kits should be green with a white cross, to make them easily recognised.

Someone should be delegated to check the contents of the first aid kits on a regular basis, including expiry dates and re-stock any items which need replacing as soon as is practical. Out of date items should be disposed of safely, or pass them to your first aid training provider for use in training other first aiders.

For more hazardous environments, you should think through your particular risks and provide extra items in your kit as appropriate, for example:

• If you work with machinery you might want to include more in the way of large dressings
• If your environment includes hot areas you could include burn gel dressings
• For outdoor work, consider a foil blanket to help deal with exposure

This is by no means an exhaustive list but we hope it helps you make a decision on what to include in your own workplace first aid kit.

Paediatric First Aid Course in August

Due to an increased number of enquiries for Paediatric First Aid Training recently we’ve just added an extra two day early years course on August 13-14 to run at our training facility in the Shildon Business Centre, County Durham.

The course is aimed specifically at childminders and other people working with children and has been tailored to meet the course program laid down by the National Child Minding Association, OFSTED and SureStart.

You can find more details of this course on our early years first aid page or you can contact us for a friendly discussion of your requirements on 01388 771726 or via our online contact form.

A busy week at Help First Aid Training

Over the last week Help First Aid Training has trained over 30 delegates in the following training courses, First Aid at Work, Basic Life Support and Emergency First Aid at Work. The Students travelled from across the North East, County Durham, Darlington and Stockton to attend. Each of the courses went extremely well and all students pasted with flying colours.

Help First Aid Training teach their 1000th student.

After only 18 months since launching, Help First Aid Training has trained an impressive 1000 students. The course deliveries have varied between our open courses and in-house training, a wide variety of training has been delivered including First Aid at Work, Emergency First Aid at Work and Paediatric First Aid. During this time we have travelled all over County Durham, Teeside and the North East of England. Part of our success comes from our valued partnership with local firms and businesses.