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QNUK Level 3 Award in Outdoor First Aid (RQF)
Two days, for work in the outdoors where help may be up to two hours away. Once the ambulance is that far off, first aid stops being a holding action and starts being casualty care.
About this course
The QNUK Level 3 Award in Outdoor First Aid is built for people working somewhere the emergency services cannot simply drive to. Mountain and moorland, forestry, coast, remote estates, expedition and field work: places where a casualty may be with you for a long time before anybody else arrives.
That single fact changes almost everything. You have to think about the weather, about shelter, about moving somebody or deliberately not moving them, about how you summon help when there is no signal and nobody knows exactly where you are, and about what a casualty looks like an hour and a half after the injury rather than five minutes after it.
It covers the standard first aid ground properly, then adds what the outdoors does to it: hypothermia and heat illness, bites and stings, drowning, crush and entrapment, improvised splinting and shelter, and casualty monitoring over time.
If your casualties are typically within thirty minutes of the emergency services, the one day Emergency Outdoor First Aid award is the better fit and we will say so. This one is for genuinely remote work.
- Assessing an incident outdoors, including the dangers that are not the casualty
- Adult CPR and the recovery position in the open, on uneven and awkward ground
- Summoning help when there is no signal, and giving a location somebody can actually find
- Catastrophic and serious bleeding, and the kit worth carrying for it
- Head, spinal, bone, muscle and joint injuries, and improvised splinting
- Hypothermia, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, and the weather that causes them
- Drowning, near drowning, crush injury and entrapment
- Bites, stings, anaphylaxis and the illnesses that ambush people in the field
- Monitoring and caring for a casualty over a long wait, including shelter and morale
How completing this course helps you
- QNUK Level 3 Award in Outdoor First Aid, valid for three years
- The qualification outdoor employers, awarding bodies and insurers expect for remote work
- Sixteen hours of training that assumes the ambulance is a long way off
- Practical experience of casualty care outdoors, not a classroom version of it
Who should attend?
Anyone working or leading in the outdoors where help may be up to two hours away: mountain and hill leaders, forestry and arboriculture workers, expedition and Duke of Edinburgh staff, outdoor instructors, estate and countryside workers, field researchers, and search and rescue volunteers.
Entry requirements. None. You need to be physically able to carry out practical first aid on the floor, including CPR on a manikin, and to have enough English to follow the training and the written assessment.
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.
Choosing the right one
Which first aid course does your workplace actually need?
The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 do not name a course. They tell an employer to carry out a first aid needs assessment and then provide what that assessment says is adequate, which is why two businesses next door to each other can land on different answers.
The rough shape is this. Lower hazard workplaces usually land on Emergency First Aid at Work, one day. Higher hazard workplaces, larger headcounts and anywhere with specific risks usually land on First Aid at Work, three days. Early years settings have their own rules through the Department for Education. Outdoor and remote work adds distance from the ambulance, which changes the answer again.
If you are not sure where you sit, ring us with what your people actually do and we will talk it through. Sending somebody on the wrong course costs more than the phone call.
Do the needs assessment first
Hazards, headcount, shift patterns, lone workers and how far you are from help. The HSE guidance is the starting point and it is short.
Match the course to the answer
EFAW for lower hazard, FAW for higher hazard, plus any specific qualification your setting or your insurer requires.
Plan the three years
Certificates last three years and the HSE recommends an annual refresher in between. Diary it when you book, not when it expires.
Course content
What you will cover
The qualification is structured around the management of health and safety and the practical application of risk assessment.
The outdoor first aider
- The role and responsibilities of an outdoor first aider
- Minimising the risk of infection
- Consent, and casualty and rescuer safety
- Assessing an incident in an outdoor environment
- Summoning assistance with poor or no signal, and giving a findable location
- Recording and handing over
Life threatening emergencies outdoors
- Adult CPR on uneven ground and in poor conditions
- The recovery position and monitoring over time
- Choking
- Catastrophic and serious external bleeding
- Shock
- Drowning and near drowning
- Crush injury and entrapment
Injuries and the environment
- Head, neck and spinal injuries, and the decision to move or not move
- Bone, muscle and joint injuries, and improvised splinting
- Burns, scalds and eye injuries
- Hypothermia, heat exhaustion and heat stroke
- Bites, stings and anaphylaxis
- Shelter, insulation and protecting a casualty from the weather
The long wait
- Monitoring a casualty over an extended period
- Major illness: heart attack, stroke, seizure, asthma and diabetic emergency
- Planning and packing an outdoor first aid kit
- Casualty handover to mountain rescue or the ambulance service
Method of assessment
How Outdoor First Aid is assessed
Assessment runs through the course rather than being bolted on at the end. Your tutor observes the practical work as you go, and the written paper closes it off.
Practical observation
Observed across the two days, much of it outdoors and in whatever weather the day produces. That is deliberate: technique that only works in a warm room is not much use on a hillside.
Scenario work
Extended scenarios that run past the first five minutes, so you practise monitoring, shelter and decision making rather than just the initial treatment.
Written assessment
A multiple choice paper covering the environmental injuries and illnesses alongside the core first aid. Certification is issued by QNUK and lasts three years.
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 Outdoor First Aid 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
Outdoor First Aid FAQs
Distance from help, and the range of injuries that brings with it. Outdoor First Aid is two days and assumes help may be up to two hours away. Emergency Outdoor First Aid is one day and assumes casualties are typically less than thirty minutes from the emergency services, which is the activity centre end of the scale.
It is a regulated Ofqual qualification on the RQF, accreditation number 603/2455/7, and it is the sixteen hour outdoor first aid standard that outdoor employers and national governing bodies generally ask for. Check the exact wording your own body uses and we will confirm it fits before you book.
A good part of it, yes. Dress for the weather. Treating somebody on wet ground with cold hands is a different skill from treating them on a mat indoors, and there is not much point pretending otherwise.
No. It is a standalone qualification and it starts from the beginning. Plenty of candidates already hold First Aid at Work and find the outdoor material is genuinely new ground rather than a repeat.
Three years. The HSE also recommends an annual refresher in between, which is a half day and keeps skills and confidence current rather than letting them fade for three years at a time.
Yes, anywhere in the UK. For six or more people it is normally cheaper per head than sending everybody to a centre, and nobody loses a day travelling. We work around your shift patterns.
At our centres in Stoke-on-Trent, Derby, Manchester and Liverpool, at your own premises nationwide, and through our partner network where a local option suits you better. Pick a date from the board on this page or call 0330 124 2165.
QNUK, an Ofqual regulated awarding organisation. This one is QNUK Level 3 Award in Outdoor First Aid (RQF), accreditation number 603/2455/7. We are an approved QNUK centre.
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