Following our May newsletter regarding the Resuscitation Council Guidelines being updated, we are pleased to outline these changes.

The updated PowerPoints and training notes for all related qualifications will be available by the end of September.

With regard to manuals, there will be a crossover period due to factors such as stock levels and printing schedules with not all updated manuals being introduced at the same time.

You can view the full Resuscitation Council UK 2021 Guidelines.

There are no major protocol changes and the minor changes, to both adult and paediatric first aid, are detailed below.

Adult First Aid

• Recovery position – To be used only when needed and not routinely. As a rule of thumb, if an unresponsive casualty has no evidence of trauma, they should be placed in the recovery position. If a casualty has physical trauma they should be left in the position found, ideally flat with their airway open. Only if you believe their airway to be at risk should the casualty be placed in the recovery position, injured side down
• Concussion – When treating a concussion with a cold compress, this should not be applied for longer than 20 minutes
• Control of bleeding – If a dressing becomes soiled, rather than apply another dressing on top, the soiled dressing should be removed, the bleeding controlled again and a new dressing reapplied

Paediatric First Aid

• Definition of a child - The Resuscitation Council UK (RCUK) and European Resuscitation Council (ERC) defines a child as being from 1 year old through to 18 years old. Previously this was defined as up to the ‘onset of puberty’. First aiders should make a common sense judgement based on the size of the casualty, and if in any doubt they should adopt paediatric protocols
• Recovery position – To be used only when needed and not routinely. As a rule of thumb, if an unresponsive casualty has no evidence of trauma, they should be placed in the recovery position. If a casualty has physical trauma they should be left in the position found, ideally flat with their airway open. Only if you believe their airway to be at risk should the casualty be placed in the recovery position, injured side down
• Concussion – When treating a concussion with a cold compress, this should not be applied for longer than 20 minutes
• Control of bleeding – If a dressing becomes soiled, rather than apply another dressing on top, the soiled dressing should be removed, the bleeding controlled again and a new dressing reapplied

ANNUAL MONITORING

As stated in our February 2021 newsletter, due to Covid-19 FAA made the decision to remove the 2020 annual monitoring requirement and to restart for 2021.

Just a reminder that all first aid trainer/assessors must be monitored during 2021 with a completed monitoring report submitted by the 31st December 2021 to allow them to continue training into 2022.