Essential training – First Aid
Holding a first aid qualification protects you, your riders and your colleagues. It is the responsibility of the training provider to ensure instructors have adequate training in place.
First Aid requirements
The minimum first aid requirements for Bikeability instructors are that:
- All instructors must hold a first aid qualification and enter the date of completion on Link
- The qualification must be delivered face-to-face
- The first aid training provider must meet the criteria set out in the GEIS3 document by the health and safety executive
- The training must be repeated every 3 years
Your first aid training must cover:
- the importance of preventing cross-infection
- the need for recording incidents and actions
- use of available equipment
- being able to assess the situation and circumstances in order to act safely, promptly and effectively in an emergency
- administering first aid to a casualty who
- is unconscious (including seizure)
- needs cardiopulmonary resuscitation and use of an automated external defibrillator
- is choking
- is wounded and bleeding
- is suffering from shock
- Anaphylaxis (including use of an epi-pen)
- providing appropriate first aid for minor injuries (including small cuts, grazes and bruises, minor burns and scalds, small splinters).
Providers and qualifications
The Trust has collated some suitable examples of first aid qualifications and the first aid training providers here. We do not recommend any particular training organisation and training providers can source their own as long as the course covers the points above.
As delivering Bikeability involves working with children you may want to undertake paediatric first aid training where appropriate. Training providers should decide which qualifications are applicable for their staff and whether previous qualifications (such as medical training) are valid.
New instructors must complete their first aid training within 3 months of gaining provisional instructor status. Government guidance on first aid in schools suggests that 1 first aider is needed to cover first aid requirements but the provision of first aiders should also be enough to ensure that first aid can be administered without delay. We recommend that training providers need to risk assess the availability of first aid trained instructors on a course to ensure adequate provision.
