Changes to First Aid Training in 2024

Accidents or sudden illnesses can happen in the blink of an eye and often require immediate treatment to stabilize the patient before emergency medical treatment is available. These first 20 minutes are critical and can make all the difference in life-threatening situations. This is why having a first aider is important, as they are trained to fulfil this role and provide the initial emergency care that is required.

First aid is an important element in ensuring the health and safety of people in the workplace and helps to preserve the lives of employees and allows them to receive immediate medical attention. By law, employers must take reasonable and practical steps to provide and maintain a safe and healthy work environment. In South Africa, the prescriptions of the General Safety Regulation (GSR) 3 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Act 85 of 1993, as amended) address this and require that there is an appointed first aider in every workplace. In the case of shops and offices, the employer needs to appoint at least one first aider for every 100 employees. Any other workplace (not an office or shop) must appoint at least one first aider for every 50 employees. The appointed first aiders need to have undergone accredited training.

Changes to first aid training requirements

As at 31 March 2021, the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) recognised that first aid training would be dealt with by the QCTO or their Quality Assurance Partners, and any providers, that had not successfully been accredited with the QCTO or SETA would no longer have approval from the DEL to offer first aid training. To standardise first aid training, the approved accredited training programmes needed to be based on the following three-unit standards:

• US 119567 – Perform basic life support and first aid procedures.
• US 120496 – Provide risk-based primary emergency care/first aid in the workplace.
• US 376480 – Provide first aid as an advanced first responder.

However, as at the end of June 2023, all unit standards have expired, and legacy qualifications are being realigned, replaced, or deregistered. This created a void in the regulatory training that is required to make legal appointments as per the OHS Act. As it stands, the required training is based on unit standards (now expired) and therefore the training would be considered non-accredited and not meet the conditions of the Act.

A way forward

As this was an area of great concern, stakeholders continuously engaged with the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL), Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO), and its Quality Assurance Partners (QAP) such as Health & Welfare (HWSETA), and others on Regulatory Skills Programmes that needed to be developed to address this issue.

A second challenge being faced was that QCTO policy requires all skills programmes to be a minimum of 8 credits. The First Aid Unit Standards 119567 and 120496 were only 5 credits and fell short of this requirement.

Discussions continued between DEL and QCTO, which resulted in the issue of a joint communique on 26 October 2023 regarding the Registration of Skills Programmes to meet regulatory requirements. It was decided that Skills Programmes, which are regulated by the Department of Employment and Labour, will be referred to as Regulatory Skills Programmes. Although some of these Regulatory Skills Programmes will be less than 8 credits and may not comply with the OQSF Policy, if listed by the Department of Employment and Labour, they will be registered with justifiable motivation. The Skills Development Providers who seek to offer these programmes will need to apply to QCTO for accreditation.

In terms of obtaining a licence as an approved first aid organisation, Skills development providers will still need to apply to register their company with the Department of Employment and Labour. This application will need to be accompanied by the SDP’s QCTO accreditation letter and the prescribed application fee.

Changes to the first aid programmes

The content of the skills programmes remains unchanged, but the names and credit value of the programmes have been revised as follows:

• Basic Emergency First Aid Responder – 2 credits

• Intermediate Emergency First Aid Responder - 5 credits
• Advanced Emergency First Aid Responder - 6 credits

Another change is that Skills development providers will now have to conduct a Final Internal Summative assessment (FISA) and submit the results to QCTO for approval to grant certification. This may influence the timely issuing of certificates, so it is advisable not to let current first aid certificates near expiry before doing a renewal course. It also has yet to be told what the validity period will be for the new programme’s certificates - will they be valid for 3 years as they are now, will the validity time be shorter, or will they align with the QCTO accreditation time frame of 5 years?

Building reliable programmes

Having the quality assurance process of this training centralized with the QCTO ensures that employees trained in first aid will receive standardized training and if certified will be capable of assisting employees during an emergency.

Generally, it is important to choose a training provider that offers accredited training as it guarantees the quality of that training. By June 2024, all accreditation for regulated training will sit with the QCTO, and it is important that your company choose a training provider that is QCTO accredited and recognized by the Department of Employment and Labour as a first aid organisation. The Master Builders KwaZulu-Natal Training Academy is mid-way through its QCTO accreditation and will be ready to offer OCTO-accredited first aid courses by June 2024.

Click here to download the Joint Communiqué 1 of 2023 on the Regulatory Skills Programmes in the Trade and Occupational sector.

Heidi Kilian

Head: Training Academy