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Why do I need to refresh my CPR and First Aid?

Most industry employers now require you to renew your CPR and first aid, but is it really required?

Our peak resusitation body, The Australian Resuscitation Council specifies that CPR should be refreshed every 12 months according to Guideline 10.1 "All those trained in CPR should refresh their CPR skills at least annually"

But more importantly the Code of Practice for First Aid in the workplace on page 17 states "Frequency of training for first aiders - First aiders should attend training on a regular basis to refresh their first aid knowledge and skills and to confirm their competence to provide first aid. Refresher training in CPR should be carried out annually and first aid qualifications should be renewed every three years."

Although the code of practice is not mandatory, codes of practice can be used in a court of law as a reference standard as to the expected practice Codes of Practice.

In such cases, therer is the potential to prove a PCBU(employer) was negligent if they were not following the requirements of the code of practice, unless they had a documented risk assessed solution to the issue of first aid applicable to that particular workplace.

Now comes the clincher, if it gets to court because either the first aider or the PCBU failed in their "duty of care" under Part 2, Div 2, Section 28(worker)or Section 19 (PCBU) of the WHS Act) and the PCBU relies on their risk assessed solution, the very fact that they are in court means that the risk assessed solution probably failed!

Why are CPR updates so important

In a recent study of nurses (who really should understand the importance of CPR), the participants were broken into 1, 3, 6 and 12 month CPR training groups.

The training included a training session about the components of high-quality CPR and two minutes of CPR using an adult CPR torso manikin with real-time performance feedback.

The proportion of participants who were able to deliver high quality CPR was:

• 58% in the 1-month group
• 26% in the 3-month group
• 21% in the 6-month group
• 15% in the 12-month group

This clearly shows that the ability to do effective CPR drops rapidly after the first 3 months of the course and by 12 months is almost ineffective! This higlights the need for regular refresher training.

At 1SDO Training, we ensure that our training empowers you to do first aid and CPR effectively to meet your requirements in the workplace.