First Aid Courses Return; Chatting with Louise Worsley

After lockdown workshops via Zoom, Worsley Training returns with actual first aid courses, there’s one at Devizes Town Hall on May 18^th, where basic first aid, including the use of a defibrillator will be taught in a four-hour emergency course, concurrently with a full six-hour accredited Emergency First Aid at Work course. Ideal for general interest or a small business owner who needs the full one-day accredited certificate. The course mixes theoretical and practical learning and assessment, and the accredited certificate lasts for three years… I’m all for finding out more:

If I had a time machine, they’d probably erect a statue of me, for I have a tendency to dream up ingenious ideas which I later find out have already been put in place! I came up with the virtual blackboard years after someone else did, and were widely used. Similarly, today, planning a chat with first aid instructor, Louise Worsley, I thought to myself, shouldn’t first aid be part of the school curriculum, only to discover the success of a campaign from the St Johns Ambulance website which put just that into place a year ago!

“Yes,” Louise confirmed, “after years of campaigning St Johns and the Red Cross have finally got it on the curriculum for primary and secondary schools.” She continued to explain she had been teaching first aid at schools for years, “but it hasn’t been compulsory, just up to PTAs to decide whether they think it should or shouldn’t be taught.”

I wondered where this left Louise’s business, Worsley Training, if teachers are administering the training, hopefully she could train the teachers. “Basically, yes, I have a flyer which I send out to schools,” she told me. Louise was a formerly geography teacher, “so I’m in comfort zone with schools.” She has the scope to teach the children, or train the teachers, “and also what questions are going to come up, and how the kids react.”

I expect you’d get quite different responses from children as you would from adults. “Oh, god yes!” she laughed, “as with any off-curriculum subjects, primary school children love it, secondary are far too cool, and I have to strongly encourage them to get involved.” But Louise supposed though they might not have practiced it entirely accurately, at least they have practised it should the need arise.

Personally, while I’m not as perilously sensitive as a vampire who faints at the sign of blood, I never saw myself as a first aider until a company asked me if it was something I wanted to do. I figured being the one to sort out spilled blood and guts while workmates slouched in the tearoom might be a step too far for me. Yet I found the course interesting, and proudly became an appointed first aid person, thankfully only having to use it once. It was later, at a smaller company when the first aider was on holiday! Louise beathed a grave sigh upon telling her, and stressed the rule, “there should always be a first aider on hand.”

I didn’t say it to get into the law, only to ask Louise if it was the right course of action to take, being my certificate had expired, and I wasn’t official. I explained it to the worker, and asked if they wanted me to administer first aid before proceeding. “An appointed person doesn’t qualify you to give any first aid. The only responsibilities were to recognise something was wrong, call 999, deliver report forms and restoke the first aid kit.” Louise stressed it’s not a qualification, “they never say you have to do any first aid despite being taught some. It exists as there has to be a person in company to do those things. The first qualification is the emergency first aid at work, a one-day course.” Louise teaches this as a public course.

Another reason why I bought it up with Louise, is when on the course I asked how a process would differ if the patient was a baby, being my daughter was at the time. The instructor ludicrously replied they couldn’t teach me that, as this was an appointed person in the workplace course, and you won’t be administering it on a baby. “That’s a rubbish trainer,” she stressed!

Even for the workplace course, Louise always brings child and baby manakins along, “because a lot of people are parents, and want to know, others might work in cafes, the qualification is just for the employees, but if you were working in, say, a café, or similar, it wouldn’t be very good PR to say I’m not going to get involved.” I supposed it wouldn’t take long to explain the difference, and she agreed. “the main differences are with choking and CPR, the rest you just treat them more gently.” She continued on technicalities of the differences, I’m not going to run them off here, you’ll have to take the course!

Wanting to inquire why certificates expire, if the theory of first aid changes, but the answer was more simply people they need a reminder. “I always finish a course by saying, I hope you never have to use this, but if you don’t use it you obviously forget it. Things do change, but my style is very much to give you confidence, that something is better than nothing. If all you can remember was taught ten years ago, at least you’re doing something. Whereas panicking, worrying they might get sued is useless.”

The use of public access defibrillators is something which has been updated, I wanted to know how easy they are to use, because, they look simple on the casing, but under stress or panic mode, might be a different story. Louise has four training versions of defibrillators, which won’t shock. Though she confirmed they’re simple to use, which might undermine that section of her course, but again, confidence to use them is favoured. “People can be sacred of them, but the more who know how to use them…. They’ve saved so many lives so far,” which is, after all, why we’re here discussing the issue.

But it must be nice for Louise to be looking forward to starting actual course again, after Zoom meetings during lockdown. She said she enjoyed either, “but yeah, meeting people, in a hall, I was okay, haven’t done this since December!” Unlike the first lockdown, they didn’t have to stop teaching, but Louise felt she shouldn’t put on a course. But now, Worsley Training is getting fully booked already, “I missed it when it was not happening.”

I’m grateful for our chat, Louise is obviously passionate about teaching first aid. “I love teaching and first aid is such a needy topic to get behind, so, there’s no reason not to go on a first aid course, if someone offers it to you; you never know when you’ll need it, and it’s better to know it and not need it rather than need it and not.”

To find out more info or book a course, click here

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