Progress Update on the Occupational First Aid and First Aid Response (FAR) Transition Project

PHECC has been working with the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) over the past 22 months for taking regulatory responsibility for the education and training programmes that prepare individuals to provide first aid in the workplace. The transition timeline originally established by the HSA has been pushed back from the 1st September 2017 for an additional 3 months to the 31st December 2017. At that point HSA will only recognise the FAR Education and Training Standard as the national standard for meeting the needs of occupational first aid in all workplaces.

Since our last update PHECC has continued to receive and assess new applications for its recognised institution (RI) status from organisations including solo providers seeking to deliver PHECC courses, particularly for the FAR and FAR instructor courses. Currently there are 30 RIs approved to deliver FAR. There are 12 RIs approved to provide FAR instructor courses with additional applications at different stages of review for RI recognition and FAR course approvals.

As our network of RIs continues to expand we are engaging with interested organisations, instructors and others about our regulatory model for education and training including our Quality Review Framework and associated Teaching Faculty Framework. This is done through hosting pre-application meetings, ongoing communication to organisations for the various stages of the application assessment process, induction meetings for new RIs and general queries and correspondence.

The Education and Standards Committee, at its September meeting, established a subgroup of committee members to examine the 2014 FAR Education and Training Standard and recommend revisions to PHECC Council if deemed necessary.   This work is incorporating PHECC and HSA stakeholders’ concerns which include course duration, instructor/student ratios, recertification and grace periods (this list is not exhaustive). The subgroup is reviewing international best practice and evidence for first aid/responder programmes to inform this priority work. Upon completion, the subgroup will present its work to the Committee and recommendations will then be made to PHECC Council for consideration and approval. The projected timeline for completion is early Q1 2018.
  
Updates regarding OFA/HSA to FAR/PHECC will be posted as necessary on the PHECC website and Facebook. Queries should be sent to far@phecc.ie.