Once a year, with a full requalification every three years.
That is the short answer, and it is what HSE recommends rather than what the law spells out. A First Aid at Work certificate lasts three years, and HSE guidance asks employers to arrange a short annual refresher in the two years in between. The refresher is not a legal requirement in the way the three yearly requalification is, but if something goes wrong and your first aiders last practised two years ago, that gap is the first thing anyone will ask about.
Skills fade, and faster than people expect
The uncomfortable part is that first aid is a practical skill, and practical skills decay when they are not used.
Research into resuscitation training has consistently found that both confidence and technique start to slip within months of a course, not years. Compression depth and rate are usually the first things to go. Most people retain the theory perfectly well and lose the muscle memory, which is exactly the half that matters when somebody is on the floor in front of them.
It rarely feels like forgetting. It feels like hesitating. In an emergency the difference between acting in five seconds and acting in thirty is the whole thing.
Guidance changes, and so does your workplace
Two other reasons a certificate can be in date while the training behind it is not.
Protocols get updated. Resuscitation guidance is reviewed and revised, and a first aider trained three years ago may be working from a version that has since moved on.
Your risks change. New equipment, a new layout, a different shift pattern, a team that has half turned over since the last course. A first aid needs assessment made two years ago was made about a workplace that no longer exists in quite that form.
What a refresher covers
A refresher is short, practical and deliberately hands on. Ours covers:
- CPR and AED practice, on manikins, until it is automatic again
- Any protocol changes since the team was last trained
- Bleeding, burns, fractures and shock
- Scenario work built around your actual premises
- A mental health awareness element where it is relevant to the team
The scenarios are the part worth having. Practising a collapse in a training centre is useful. Practising one in your own warehouse, with your own layout and your own nearest exit, is what people actually remember.
Why we run refreshers on site
We deliver refresher training at your premises, across Glasgow and the surrounding area.
That means no travel time and no half day lost to getting everyone across the city. It means the team trains together, in the room they would really be working in, using the equipment they would really reach for. It is a flat fee for the group rather than a price per head, and certificates are issued the same day.
For a team of any size it is almost always the simpler option, and it removes the usual reason refreshers get postponed, which is that nobody can afford the day.
Booking a refresher
If your team last trained more than a year ago, they are due. If their certificates are approaching three years, they need the full First Aid at Work requalification rather than a refresher, and it is worth checking those dates now rather than discovering an expiry the week it lapses.
Tell us the size of the team and where you are, and we will come to you.
