Training Qualifications UK is proud to be a member of the First Aid Awarding Organisation Forum. This group has been formed to support awarding organisations such as ourselves in maintaining the integrity and validity of first aid qualifications and ensuring they continue to meet the needs of employers.
The qualifications regulator Ofqual’s figures show that first aid qualifications are the most awarded qualifications in the country with approximately 400,000 people taking the Emergency First Aid at Work qualification each year.
With such a high volume of courses, the need to maintain standardised approaches across delivery, assessment and quality assurance of first aid qualifications is of vital importance, especially when you consider the statutory needs of employers.
The forum, which meets a minimum of two times per year, is in place to respond to this requirement. Consisting of 34 awarding organisations (at time of writing), the forum is committed working collaboratively on our approaches to first aid qualifications.
With its scope including First Aid at Work and Emergency First Aid at Work, Paediatric and Emergency Paediatric First Aid, Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation and Automated External Defibrillation among others, the forum exists to provide a way for awarding organisations to approach the needs of the sector in a unified way.
The group aims to maintain the reputation of the qualifications through sharing concerns and issues raised to each individual body that may threaten the qualifications as a whole. By collaborating with stakeholders on the development of consistent and sensible first aid qualifications, and discussing the potential pitfalls of interpretation, the group is able to respond to the needs of those on the frontline of delivery and assessment.
A great example of the forum in action was the recent change to assessment on Paediatric First Aid in having a learner demonstrate use of an adrenaline auto-injector rather than just describe its use on both an infant and a child.
Training Qualifications UK, as part of the forum, will actively contribute to decisions made and in developing answers where issues have been identified. We would encourage all of our partners to engage with the forum as a way to discuss first aid qualifications and help us to influence the continuing operation of a robust and consistent portfolio of first aid qualifications.
Find out more about the First Aid Awarding Organisation Forum by visiting their website.
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