As a business that runs first aid training courses in Fort William you’d expect us to say yes.
Running a business, leading a team or trying to do your job seems to involve so many forms, laws and a jungle of standards, that many people just see first aid training as another thing forced on them.
It seems even worse if you are a sports coach or volunteer.
So do we really need to do a first aid course?
We’ll leave aside the legal answer to the next blog and focus on this question:
“Do I need a first aid course? Do I really need one every three years”?
As a business that runs first aid training courses in Fort William you’d expect us to say yes. So let’s look at the statistics and see how likely we are to need real first aid skills, the lifesaving stuff. Not just putting a plaster on graze or spending precious hours of our life looking at PowerPoint slides of first aid every three years.
In the year 2016/17 137 people were killed in workplace accidents 1.
In the same year over 600,000 people self-reported an injury from work and over 70,000 employers reported an injury to a member of their workforce 2. That’s with a working population of over 32 million 3.
The good news is that UK workplaces are getting safer! While all workplaces carry some risks we seem to be getting better at managing those risks. So has the first aid course had its day?
What about our homes? Outside work we spend a lot of time at home.
Surely work is more dangerous than the home?
- More accidents happen at home than anywhere else 4
- Every year there are approximately 6,000 deaths as the result of a home accident 4
OK, so we now know homes are dangerous, much more than the workplace. So we’ll just stay out of the dangerous rooms, you know the ones with sharp objects and slippery surfaces. We’ll keep out of the kitchen, the bathroom and NEVER go into the garage. We’ll be safe then, right?
Turns out the most dangerous room in the house is your lounge or living room! 4
I have the great privilege of bringing up two children with my beautiful wife and my parents who live locally. We visit my parents at least once a week and sit in the most dangerous room in the house, their lounge. We drink tea and chat while the children play on the floor. While my work insists I have a first aid certificate (yes, first aid trainers redo theirs every 3 years as well), I know that I am most likely to do real first aid on those I love the most.
That is why at Highland First Aid we do courses that tick the legal box for work, sports and voluntary roles. Our practical and clear demonstrations with lots of coaching will also give you the skills to help those you love the most, because we are more likely to use those skills in our homes on our friends and family than on our colleagues or members of the public.
