Research commissioned by the British Red Cross found that only 5% of adults felt “knowledgeable, confident and willing to act” in in three first aid emergency scenarios – Heavy bleeding, unresponsive and breathing, and unresponsive and not breathing. Judging from this research, there must be many parents with young children throughout the country who wouldn’t know how to respond if their child was seriously ill or injured. Indeed, the study also found that 81% of adults lack the first aid knowledge and confidence to save a choking baby. In life-threatening situations, effective first aid can be absolutely critical – the ambulance response time for the most serious emergencies is 7 minutes, but even if this is achieved, it can often be too late.
Be ready for anything
While it’s natural to think it’ll never happen to you, it’s far better to be prepared. Data from Australia shows over 150 children aged 0-14 are killed and 68,000 hospitalised due to unintentional injuries each year. Taking into account the UK’s larger population, there could be around 180,000 children in our hospitals with accidental injuries each year, which doesn’t include illnesses. While not all of these cases will be serious, that adds up to a lot of worried parents.
In any case, first aid skills aren’t just called upon in medical emergencies. Children are injury-prone by nature and being able to treat minor injuries properly can prevent them becoming more serious. For example, cleaning and protecting cuts properly is vital to stop them from becoming infected. First aid knowledge also helps parents understand when they need to take their child to a doctor, emergency department, or call an ambulance – reducing unnecessary callouts for the emergency services.
Paediatric first aid training for parents
If you’re a parent with young children, it’s highly recommended to undergo special paediatric first aid training, as the symptoms of illness and emergency first aid procedures often differ between adults, children and infants – CPR is a good example of this.
If you’re looking for paediatric first aid training that you can trust, our 1 day course is ideal – it covers all the essentials, including bleeding, burns choking, CPR and severe allergic reactions. Alternatively, we run an Ofqual Accredited 2 day course which can form part of a child minding NVQ. These courses are ideal for parents but are also invaluable for teachers, classroom assistants, child-minders or anyone that works in a business aimed at children – like a theme park.