Posted By Peter Taylor14
you need to check new first aid regs

Posted By Jim Walker
Just so long as you realise they are not first aiders and should not be described as such anywhere. Nor should they be allowed to carry out anything beyond their remit.

If your RA shows a rapid response time from Ambulance services the appointed persons would be OK

Posted By Paul Leadbetter
David

While I would certainly hope that accidents rates are low, you should consider the likely severity of those that could happen. There is the potential for serious injury in, for example, the kitchens (cuts, burns, etc). Would an AP and external paramedical assistance be a sufficient response?

Paul

Posted By Bruce Sutherland
David

Am with you - I would be surprised if Parliament had intended that there would be a need to have a whole host of First Aiders trained in your business. You have to make an assessment and then provide that level of cover at all times........

I think that you will find that any competent first aid training organisation will customise their course to cover the risks so well identified in the thread.

Re Defibs - if you look at the success rates - ie walk out normally - when these are used in hospitals - they are disappointingly low - - approx 5 % I believe and that is with proper kit and Doctors and Nurses - given that the population they are used on is roughly similar - ie all have heart disease then other than giving the person using them the knowledge that they have tried - I am uncertain in the hands of the average joe in the street that they are really all they are cracked up to be - oh and I mean a trained joe - but joe has no means to ventilate and no other toys

Cheers

Bruce

Posted By Dave Merchant
The need for a FAAWer (someone who has done the 4-day HSE course) is always up for debate, and without seeing your place I think yes/no advice is questionable - it has to be based on a risk assessment, and as mentioned there are lots of potential pitfalls you may only notice if you're familiar with the location (kitchens, etc.). Certainly there's no legal requirement that you MUST provide a FAAWer, but if you risk-assess not to there's always that nagging possibility an accident will happen that shows your RA was wrong. At least if you have one on site you've got belt-n-braces. You're not really balancing the cost of the course against the service that person will provide as they probably won't do anything from one year to the next, but against the cost of being found wrong.

It's important to remember that a FAAWer is nothing special in terms of SKILLS, only in terms of their legal status under the 1981 regs. You can get an FAAW cert and be utterly useless in a crisis (I've seen that hundreds of times) and equally you can be a consultant neurosurgeon and not be called "a first aider" because you didn't do that specific course. I once worked in a general practice where the only "first aider" was the receptionist! There is no legal barrier to providing emergency first aid, either in the workplace or outside it, if you don't have certification or "official" training - the law simply requires that you act in a manner in which a similarly-skilled and reasonable member of the public would consider appropriate. You can't saw off a leg to cure hiccups, but to say that only the FAAWer can do CPR or control bleeding is simply wrong.

If your RA really doesn't warrant a FAAWer then personally I'd look at putting a few people through the 1-day or 2-day courses run by the VAS - they're not "FAAW" and can't put people on the green posters, but they cover the stuff needed to maintain life until help arrives and there's absolutely no problem with those people carrying out a stop-gap function.

In response to defibs - IMO unless you need them under terms of license (public venues etc.) they're not worth the investment for employee protection in a non-specialist-risk workplace. I'd want one floating about in a power station or a football stadium but in a hotel they're statistically only likely to be used on a guest (who you're not legally required to account for) and of course they're far more expensive (both to buy and to maintain, as the batteries cost a fortune!) than training courses. Used within the first 2 minutes and on the correct type of patient they can be very effective, but in the majority of cases where they are used in the community they are applied too late and to the wrong type of patient. As a result the "long-term survival rate" is reported anywhere between 1% and 0.01%. People brought up on Holby City miss the obvious point - someone who needs a defib is almost always dead in the legal and medical sense of the word, so you can't expect them to be playing tennis by nightfall.

Posted By Dave Wilson
And another thing, you 'DO NOT' have to be 'Licensed' by the HSE to deliver AP training! So if you have suitable resources you can deliver this in house!

Posted By DP
David - when undertaking your risk assessment remember it's the First Aid at Work Regs. Your responsibilities are for your employees only not members of the public. Any assistance you can offer them will be great but comes from a customers services angle. In a low risk environment one day appointed person are fine but note the very good advice in the responses regarding the kitchen activities. Accident stats in catering will tell you this is probably not low risk.

You mention you are a large hotel. Do you have a pool? the responsibilities do change for certain criteria!! You need to check this.

Forget the addition equipment just no need.

DP.

Posted By Phil
AED's and suitable training save lives, end of story.
The only way we can help a casualty in VF or SVT is by defibrillation. Its 4 hours training with periodic requals. Cant understand people being anti AED's.
If it was me or my family, I wouldnt care if it was a Paramedic or a till girl from Sayers who applied the pads and pressed the button.

Phil

Posted By DP
Phil - interesting reading and without doubt in the right hands excellent equipment.

Its not the till girl from Sayers who will be required to use it though is it.

It requires training and needs to be in competent hands, this is clear in your link.

Going back to the original thread, if David introduces AP's then they won't fit the criteria required.

Food for thought though for all the people including me who were negative.

DP.

Posted By DP
Thanks Steve - that me out then. I have over 200 sites. That's a quarter of a million £ i could spend elsewhere.

DP

Posted By Steve Cartwright
DP

The defib that was demonstrated to us was described as idiot proof. As long as you can look at pictures and follow some simple instructions there was no requirement to go on a course.

Paul

Your company obviously has plenty of money to spare. You obviously carry out high risk activities that have the potential to cause heart attacks. As matter of interest how many employees have had heart attacks in the past?

Posted By DP
Paul - I see where you are coming from regarding my comment "till girl" I work in retail and we have massive turn over of staff in this type of work so we tend to invest safety training into the management teams where there is much less turn over of staff. Simple economics. You would not have understood my thought process when I made the comment. I apologise.

What is your area of work, what are your justifications for the introduction of this equipment. I'd be interested to know?

We have never had an incident of this nature and we have literally millions in our customers base. I could simply not justify the type of money that this would cost given the facts I have.

I have absolutely no doubt either after reading Steve's link that its fantastic equipment. I too hope you are wasting your money and you never need it. (I'm sure you understand what I mean by this)

DP.

Posted By Phil
Dave, I realise that to a small business they are an expensive item. If you have used them many times, you must have seen some benefit however?
Prices are coming down all the time, and many are available free of charge through lottery funding and the heartstart appeal, with the initial training given freely as well.

We dont think twice about 4 hours of manual handling training for everyone, yet get up tight at 4 hours of AED user training, strange eh?

Ive trained everyone from 12 year old scouts to airport Firefighters to use them, so my comment about till girls wasnt without justification ( ive trained them too for a supermarket chain! )it was merely to demonstrate that in my time of need, I dont mind which TRAINED person applies the pads, just as long as they do, if they have SR Para after their name or not.

I will do you a deal to show that we havent fallen out. You do the R.A for your locations, supply the defibs, and I will train 12 of your staff for free.


Phil ;}

Posted By Ian Sharpe
All,

I've followed this with some interest, not least because I'm farily new to HSE per se (having come over from being a paramedic) but my last post involved auditing contractor standards of first and medical response in remote locations (an oil field project) so this is an area I'm relativly familiar with.

Firstly on the AED debate. AED's save lives - No further debate needed, however that having been said there are of course cost implications for the organisation and thats what as low as is reasonably practicable and risk asessements are all about. In short there is no right or wrong answer here as to the provsion, but in terms of the basic fact, they do increse survivability rates in some circumstances. Its up to the individual doing the RA to decide if its cost effective or not.

That aside the question that concerns me though is the reliance on the 999 service as a control measure for not having an appropriate number of First Aiders. OK so the government set a 8 minute response target for a Cat A call (Breathing difficulty, heart condition etc) at 75% but it certainly is NOT always met, hence the introduction of community first response schemes to try and increase response times.

I'm a cynic but its borne of years of working in and with the NHS... My advice check carefully your local ambulance service response rates and availablility of vehicles, you may be unpleasantly surprised.

(I intended to post a link to the ORCON league table but despite half an hour on google I can't seem to find it)

Just to add flavour and as an example the last time I dialled 999 I was left doing CPR on a patient for 47 minutes, add to that 2 minutes for one of the crew to go back to the vehicle and get the defib and the minutes are ticking away. In that particular case I don't think a 5 minute response would have improved matter but it does serve to illustrate the fact you can't rely on the 999 service as a control measure not to have competent first aider providors in place.

Adequacy of training, skill retention, number of first aid trained persons versus legislation will always be a dabate that rages and swings back and forth, but the bottom line is, its the chap signing the RA who both morally and legally may have to justify his decision.

After 16 years as a medic if it were me, I'd like a couple of first aiders and an AED please... just ready for when another contractor does something silly and gives HSE chap a heart attack... :-)

Definitely said with tongue in cheek but it is food for thought.....

Cheers for now

Ian