I’ll only say that a cadet trained in first aid potentially saved the life of one of the participants in this thread (not me). Another one quickly recognised that his mother was having a heart attack and promptly called for medical assistance. First aid training at all levels in the Corps is essential. However, expecting it to magically happen without training, funding or resources is utterly bereft of sense. Thankfully we are blessed with qualified first aid trainers in this wing and all squadrons in the wing were supplied with Annies by a charity (though I don’t know which charity).
that sums up a problem that a lot of people forget about!
going off topic a bit but…when I was commissioned I was asked why we didn’t do DofE simple answer was our cadets couldn’t afford it our money goes on getting them to camps (summer, weekend etc where the sqn has to pay as the parents cant)
in our area we have 2 of the worst deprived areas in Europe and from these areas the RAF gained 2 officers that made it to Air rank plus countless other officers and Airman through these squadrons. The squadrons In these areas struggle to do any activities due to costs involved, to ask them to purchase first aid kits, hillwalking equipment etc. would be a struggle. Ex cadets now in the forces send DPMs back to the squadrons when they can to help the newer cadets (1 thing is the ex cadets now in the forces never forget where they have came from and help when they can) it was brought home to me recently how bad it is, we were at a camp with one of the units and 1 of the cadets could not believe they could choose food from a selection of food for breakfast, at lunch he struggled to understand he really could help himself and have both a burger and chips as well as a bit of cake, after talking to him privately he doesn’t remember the last time he had 3 meals a day never mind a choice of food!!
whilst First aid is a good thing to have some squadrons have more pressing issues.
Hmmm maybe joined the convo a bit late.
I’m newly returned, so I was wondering what the crack was with flying. Shame first aid’s become a tick-box, but I’m glad it’s higher on the priority list for Sqns. I work on an ICU, so I’m biased and I LOVE sim training - it’s great to see everyone’s reactions! - but I’m sure I’ll need to slay a dragon before WHQ will be happy for me to teach cadets. :whistle:
Silly question, but cadets can’t touch each other, so how do you teach recovery position etc??
This happens because the glitteratti haven’t got the first clue about squadrons, they go round the Lees Trophy nominees and must think every one is like that, but even for these there is a lot of smoke and mirrors. We have a load of effectively retirees, sitting around living the dream, they’d have to have left behind years ago, on a bloody good salary for pensioners. I bet the ACMB and meetings for Regional Officers are a hoot, issuing edicts left right and centre knowing that they have no financial or moral culpability for ensuring that resources are provided. Just a big stick if we don’t thank them for making our cadet lives just that little bit more awkward. It is extremely worrying, although not entirely surprising, that RSOs at meetings don’t seemingly fight our corner. Over the last dozenish years more and more financial burden has been dumped on squadrons to provide things that were never required previously. I’ve seen a lot more requests for assistance to pay for cadets going to camp in the last 6/7 years, than I’d seen in the previous 20, along with staff asking for money towards fuel and parking when attending things, on top of increasing, what are to all intents, admin costs that should be funded centally.
From a personal perspective I can’t do the amount of printing at work I used to do for cadet matters as we now have a personal allowance of £15 a month for printing, with each paper size, duplexing and colour priced individually, sounds a lot but not many use much less than this and I don’t have any other staff sitting in an office with free access to a printer. As a result we’ve bought a mono laser and a colour printer, with the associated costs, the CWC weren’t enthused, but without the means to print things off, the paperless office can’t exist. We like all squadrons, because HQAC decided everything was going online, have had to buy IT kit including projectors and pay for broadband. We were lucky and got a fund matching grant 5 years ago on the last round of applications from this particular fund and got a desktop, projectors, laptops and so on, which after a bit of grovelling on my part, playing the “youth card”, we got a few extra bits. Since then most of the local big grant funders have disappeared and what there is available is for relatively small amounts and more hoops. I’m lucky in that I have responsibility for the stationery budget, so the odd pack of pens, pencils etc come our way. I find it galling that we have to go cap in hand and prostrate ourselves for what we should be supplied with.
So [quote=“GOM” post=22062]expecting it to magically happen without training, funding or resources is utterly bereft of sense.[/quote]
is the normal MO for anything coming out of HQAC, because they live in a bubble knowing they haven’t got to take or accept any responsibility for their decisions about what we are supposed to do.
I’ve asked my CWC to look at sourcing annies and all the other consumables needed to do first aid training and it ain’t gonna be cheap. So we’ll need to see if we can squeeze a few quid out of someone.
Referring back to the original topic, just been told by CO that FAW is not going to be accepted as a qual , we are to have AFA instead. That has come back from our wings CO conference. They are allowing that if you can have it still until it expires, bit of a joke really considering FAW is more in depth than AFA.
are you sure it isn’t that they ACO will not be running any FAW courses or refreshers and instead those staff qualified through the ACO shall be doing activity first aid.
I have FAW through work trained by the red cross and I am not going to waste my time doing an activity first aid course :mad: :mad:
It’s got to be they’re not doing FAW in the ATC for reasons that are beyond me. Doing an AFA would be the easiest £150ish I’d get for two days being bored stupid in the ACO, but it wouldn’t get me the £740 a year I get for being a first aider in my workplace, because that requires an FAW under the company’s policy. I’ve been FAW for years before anyone got excited about FA in the ATC.
I cannot still understand the mandatory requirement, platitudes about FA aside. It doesn’t happen in the real world, so why all of a sudden in the ATC? Is it because it is cheap for them to insist we do it? What are they so worried about in the ATC? In all my time in the Corps FA has never been such a high priority they even removed it from the syllabus in the 90s … makes you think who’s getting a bung?
Why can’t it be manatory for everyone to be conversant in aeronautical/aviation based subjects, that would make perfect sense. I don’t expect to see SJA or BRC being told they need to understand all things aviation based. I bet they continue doing FA with none of these sideshow distractions.
Someone has it in their head that a duty of care towards young people means that every single member of staff needs to have a cursory knowledge of emergency first aid., despite the fact that most of the cadets will be better trained after a couple of years anyway.
Theoretically (ie, if you can actually manage to provide it to your cadets), HeartStart should be trivial to deliver to staff who don’t hold a higher qualification: sit through 2 hours of videos and chat, push on an Annie for a minute or so and have a certificate. Just have staff join in next time your juniors are doing it. that is all that the ACTO requires.
As a formal FAA qualification (to train, to enable an AT qual, to act as FA on a range etc.) they will want a bit more btu that isn’t new. On this, the ACTO is flexible but some NGBs may want more outdoor coverage than FAW will provide (your trainers may be able to cover more if you ask them)
Very few NGBs mandate ‘outdoor’ or AFA courses. They tend to specify length of course, e.g. 16hrs with an assessment.
What national guidelines or statutory parameters are being used to provide the ACO requirements?
When we are on a sqn, in general, cadets are at a form of school, taking part in low-risk activities; perhaps you might rate shooting as higher risk (but with all the mitigating factors in play, maybe not?).
If we are low risk, then the general guidance from HSE is that you only need a FAK + “co-ordinator” who would take charge of first aid requirements. “The appointed person does not need specific first-aid training.”
http://www.hse.gov.uk/firstaid/
The Regulations do not place a legal duty on employers to make first-aid provision for non-employees such as the public or children in schools.
Guidance for schools - quite basic first aid really:
But we seem to be going to extremes for cadets?
Now, for a previous revision of PAM21C, it stated that these were suitable qualifications for range medical cover:
a. All HSE approved full First Aid at Work certificates (including the First Aid at Work HSE certificates of the voluntary aid societies).
b. British Red Cross Standard or Practical First Aid certificates.
c. St Andrew’s First Aid Standard Certificate.
d. St John Ambulance Activity First Aid Certificate.
e. MATT 3 level 1 trained Regular or Reserve Forces personnel attached to/or working with cadet organisations.
So, why on earth is the FAW not seen as suitable??
Incidentally, current prices, the St John’s “First Aid at Work” cse is over 3 days & costs £342!! Their Emergency First Aid at Work = one day + £144.
From the ACO web link:
https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircadets/wanttojoin/yourchildssafety.cfm
No problem with that, stuck in the Brecon Beacons with just an “appointed” person could be an issue! 
Can over 18s do it with under 18s, or will this be another situation where cadet age is disregarded and over 18s are treated like they are under 18 by the Corps? Can staff do it with over 18s? Can staff do it with under 18s? We can’t touch a cadet to adjust a beret etc, so getting up close and personal in this sort of environment has to be a no no, unless of course it will be an exempted activity to make the edict work.
Could I as a first aider in the ATC carry out first aid on a cadet on my own regardless of gender? If not it makes this a nonsense. I remember in the 90s doing FAW refreshers, the mindset of needing an audience when doing first aid, just so you couldn’t accused of anything untoward. This seems to have died a gradual death thankfully.
Surely it is more of a case of AFA being more suitable as your average instructor doesn’t need to do a full FAW course. You can also deliver AFA in a single weekend which makes things much easier.
[quote=“glass half empty 2” post=22155]
Could I as a first aider in the ATC carry out first aid on a cadet on my own regardless of gender? [/quote]
I would hope the answer to that is obvious!
Can over 18s do it with under 18s,[/quote]
You mean learn emergency first aid? Yup, though you’ll want to have 2 adults working together for recovery position.They can maybe practice on the trainer. Other than recovery position and perhaps playing with bandages there isn’t a whole lot of person-to-person contact involved in HeartStart. We aren’t doing secondary surveys.
[quote=“talon” post=22157][quote=“glass half empty 2” post=22155]
Could I as a first aider in the ATC carry out first aid on a cadet on my own regardless of gender? [/quote]
I would hope the answer to that is obvious![/quote]
So would I but …
I am a wing first aid officer. Irun Hearst art instructor courses on my wing. I have also located a quantity of equipment on each sector within the wing
That sounds fine, but I imagine requires people driving all over the place to pick things up and take them back, with a burden on the holding squadrons to potentally provide access at different times. If it is compulsory and someone is going to get snotty on if people don’t do it, we need the kit on each squadron not a select few. This might sound expensive but if our SLT put as much effort into finding ways to fund things rather than expect sqns to pick up the tab for their schemes we’d have a much better organisation.
If I’m reading this properly and the kit is on a sqn in a sector, FA training will become the preserve of a few squadrons really local / easy access and others still struggling to deliver.
It has been mooted that weapons are located on squadrons with easy access to ranges. Sounds fine but effectively eliminates weapons training as a squadron activity. We use a squadron about 5 miles away, moving them to one with easy access to a range makes it 9 miles.
.
It works well on our wing. At the end of the day, acto8 has changed and we have to deal with it.whether we like it or not. Heartstart can be done on sqn for both staff and cadets. Provided staff are suitably qualified. which is the min that staff can be.