A work colleague and myself trained to administer medical gases last year, the course was carried out by St John's Ambulance. I now have a reminder that this is due for renewal (in June), it is advised that retraining is completed before the expiry date. But we have a slight porblem, I am away in June, my colleague is due to be on paternity leave also. Therefore, we cannot carry out this course in June.

So, the options are to retrain in April at a st John Ambulance venue further away that is ideal. This would also mean only 9 to 10 months between training (bit of a waste of money). Or to leave it until a course later in the year. But how would this leave us legally in the interim period between out old certificate becoming invalid and the retraining? There are not so many courses either, so picking at date to suit us is not alwasy easy.

I guess we will er on the side of caution and train in April, but i just wondered if someone could let me know the legal view on this? I will call someone at St John's later today.

There is no recommnded legal or quasi-legal refersher training frequency for medical gases, unlike the "First aid at work" (HSE approved course).

Therefore, even if the certificate has an expiry date, it does not follow that it is an absolute must to have the refresher especially when plan to go for the next available course.

This is just another of those situations where training providers put "expiry dates" on certificates--it does not mean that the person who has recived the training somehow becomes incompetent after the expiry date.