Hi everybody I am sure I know the answer to this question already but professional confirmation of it would be very much appreciated. I have just taken on a new role within a large retail company as their H&S manager. I am just compiling a first aid needs assessment for the company and the following issue has come to my attention. A lot of the first aiders did a 3 day first aid at work course in 2009, so obviously these ran out in 2012. They were then sent on refresher courses, the courses they were sent on were the one day emergency first aid in the workplace courses. My question is this:- were they sent on the wrong course, should they have been sent on a two day refresher. If this is the case how do we stand legally? Just need to get my facts straight before I drop the bombshell. Steve w

Hi DP The first aiders in question are based in the warehouse, processing section on the company.

Hi Sounds like they were booked on the wrong course. What does it say on their certificates? I would suggest that in a DC they should have the 2 day refresher. I don't use appointed persons in my retail DCs Ian

Ian, I think it is now too late to do the two day refresher and they will now need to re take the whole FA at Work course. You used to be able to take the refresher up to a month after expiry of your FAW certificate, but is a while since I was involved in FA training so this may have changed, and I have a feeling it was at the discretion of the course provider. Lisa

HI Steve, I also working in a DC & agree with others, given the risk within a DC environment a full FAAW would be required & as others as said to retrospectively do this they would all need to re-take the full 3day course, Whilst this looks like a clear mistake from the person who booked them onto the course i would have expected the course provider to have raised this issue, as most training providers ask for previous cert's if it was not undertaken by themselves.

Have I finally lost the plot? For the most part Lisa has ‘advised’ correctly at #6/7 #1 “They were then sent on refresher courses, the courses they were sent on were the one day emergency first aid in the workplace courses”. PLEASE! A refresher course and an EFAW course are 2 different things. The EFAW is a certified ‘stand alone’ course. A refresher course is as the name suggests a …………refresher, something used to ‘brush up’ on the skills gained by attending a previous (certified!) course, either FAW or EFAW. It is not mandatory, although advisable. A refresher course is NOT the same as a re-qualification course. Re #2, an EFAW course is not the same as an appointed persons ‘course’. In fact there is NO requirement for an Appointed Person to attend a course or have any first aid skills. That there are such courses is to some extent a cash cow for many first aid training providers. I am not convinced that there was any mistake on the part of the person that booked them on the course (#9) nor do I see that the training provider had anything to ‘pick up’ (#10) or has done ANYTHING wrong, nor the previous manager. From your description the original FAW had ran out. The confusion arises in YOUR OWN post as to whether they attended a REFRESHER course or an EFAW course. If the former then they need retraining on EITHER FAW or EFAW (depending on the findings of your assessment) on the other hand if they DID ACTUALLY attend EFAW then you are ‘covered’ and there is NO bombshell whatsoever to drop and you will save yourself from looking a ‘prune’ and save you spending even more of your companies budget on further (unnecessary) training. It’s so easy to ‘dis’ your previous H&S manager but I am NOT convinced that he/she has done anything wrong. The first thing that YOU need to do is to take a step back, decide whether they attended a refresher OR an EFAW, and take it from there.