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CPR Awareness
Half a day of hands on CPR for everybody, not just the nominated first aiders. Survival from a cardiac arrest depends on whoever happens to be standing there, and that is almost never the person with the certificate.
About this course
Somebody collapses. The nearest person decides whether they live. That is the uncomfortable arithmetic of out of hospital cardiac arrest, and it is why training only the nominated first aiders leaves a building mostly undefended.
CPR Awareness is half a day, mostly on the floor with manikins, for anybody who wants to be able to act. It is not a workplace first aid qualification and it does not pretend to be. It does one thing thoroughly: recognise cardiac arrest, start compressions, keep going, and use the defibrillator if there is one.
Compression quality is where survival is actually won, and it is the thing that falls apart fastest without practice. People compress too shallow, too slow, and stop far too often. The session spends its time fixing exactly that, with feedback manikins where we have them.
It also covers the reasons people hesitate, which are usually fear of doing harm, fear of the defibrillator, and uncertainty about whether it is really a cardiac arrest. All three are dealt with head on, because hesitation costs more lives than bad technique.
- Recognising cardiac arrest, including agonal breathing, which is the thing most people get wrong
- Checking for danger, response and breathing quickly and reliably
- Calling 999 and putting the phone on speaker so the call handler can help
- Adult chest compressions: hand position, depth, rate and full recoil
- Rescue breaths, and compression only CPR when you would rather not give them
- Swapping rescuers before quality drops, which is sooner than people think
- Using an AED: fetching it, switching it on, pads on, following the voice
- Safety around a defibrillator, and what happens when it advises no shock
- CPR on a child in outline, and how it differs
- Handing over to the ambulance service, and looking after yourself afterwards
How completing this course helps you
- An Acadame certificate in CPR Awareness
- A building where more than two people can start CPR
- Compressions that are actually deep and fast enough to circulate blood
- People who will fetch and use the defibrillator rather than wait for somebody else
Who should attend?
Anybody. Offices, factories, shops, gyms, schools, clubs, community venues and households. It is often run as a whole team session alongside a defibrillator installation, and it is a common choice for employers who want wider coverage than a handful of qualified first aiders.
Entry requirements. None. It assumes no previous training and it is written for the people doing the work rather than the people writing the policy.
Ready to take the next step?
Choose a delivery option, compare dates and book with confidence, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
Awareness or qualification
This is not a workplace first aid qualification
CPR Awareness does one thing well and makes no claim beyond it. If your first aid needs assessment calls for qualified first aiders, this does not satisfy it and it is not meant to.
What it is very good at is coverage. A workplace with four qualified first aiders and eighty untrained people has four chances of somebody nearby knowing what to do. Running CPR Awareness across the whole site changes that arithmetic completely, for half a day per person.
The two together is the sensible shape: the nominated first aiders hold Emergency First Aid at Work or First Aid at Work, and everybody else can at least start compressions and fetch the defibrillator.
Everybody
CPR Awareness. Half a day, hands on, and it scales across a whole site.
Your nominated first aiders
Emergency First Aid at Work or First Aid at Work, depending on what your needs assessment says.
If you have an AED
Responding to Incidents with an AED, a regulated half day qualification covering the device and its upkeep.
Course content
What you will cover
The qualification is structured around the management of health and safety and the practical application of risk assessment.
Recognising it
- The chain of survival and where you sit in it
- Danger, response, airway and breathing
- Agonal breathing and why it fools people
- Calling 999 and using speakerphone
- Sending somebody for the defibrillator
Doing it
- Hand position, depth, rate and recoil
- Practising on a manikin until the quality holds
- Compression only CPR and when it is the right choice
- Rescue breaths
- Swapping rescuers before fatigue degrades compressions
- Using an AED and following its instructions
- What to do when no shock is advised
Method of assessment
How CPR Awareness is assessed
Practical observation across the session. There is no written examination.
Practical observation
Everybody performs CPR on a manikin and runs through an AED sequence. Your trainer gives feedback on depth, rate and recoil until the quality is there.
No written paper
This is a practical skills session and it is assessed that way. The point is competence with your hands, not recall.
Certificate
An Acadame certificate on completion. We recommend refreshing it every year, because CPR quality fades within months.
Ways to learn
How you can take this course
Every route covers the same accredited syllabus and the same support. Pick the one that fits how your people work.
Classroom
Tutor-led at one of our centres, with everything provided.
Ask us to open a classroom date →or ask MB nowDates and locations
Arrange this course
There are no scheduled dates for this course at the moment. It is normally arranged around you.
Tell us roughly when you need it and how many people are going, and we will come back with dates and a price.
Also available
In-company training
We run this one to order, at your place or ours.
Onsite / in-company
Run CPR Awareness at your site
We deliver anywhere in the UK, on your dates and around your shift patterns. For six or more people it is usually cheaper per head than sending everyone to a centre, and nobody loses a day travelling.
Tell us roughly how many people and when, and we will come back with options and a price, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
What onsite includes
- The same tutor, materials and certification as our centres
- Your venue or one we arrange near you
- Dates and start times built around your operation
- One invoice and one point of contact for the whole group
- Content examples drawn from your own workplace
CPR Awareness FAQs
No. It is Acadame accredited awareness training. If you need a qualification for a first aid needs assessment, that is Emergency First Aid at Work or First Aid at Work, both awarded by QNUK. CPR Awareness sits alongside those to give a site much wider coverage.
You can crack ribs, and people sometimes do. You cannot make a cardiac arrest worse by starting compressions, because without them the outcome is already certain. The far more common harm is doing nothing while waiting to be sure, and the session deals with that directly.
Annually is the sensible interval. Compression quality measurably declines within months of training, which is why the best employers run a short session every year rather than a long one every three.
In outline, yes: the differences in compression depth, rate and the use of rescue breaths. If children are the main concern, the paediatric first aid qualifications are the right route and we will tell you which one fits your setting.
Acadame. It is general awareness training rather than a regulated qualification, which is the right shape for this subject: it is built around what your people actually do and it can be adapted to your own equipment, substances and procedures. Where a regulated qualification is what you need instead, we will say so and point you at it.
Yes, anywhere in the UK, and it is usually the better option. Training on your own equipment, in your own building, with your own procedures in front of people, transfers to the job in a way a generic venue does not.
Up to twelve on a standard session. For practical subjects we will talk through numbers with you, because a room of twenty watching two people practise is not training.
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