Review: Paediatric Emergency First Aid course by Spearhead Compliance Training

There is nothing worse than seeing your child ill or injured, except maybe not knowing what to do in an emergency.

Like most parents, I want to be able to keep Baby R safe at all times. I don't want him to ever be ill, to get cuts or bruises, to choke on anything or to ever get in to scrapes. Unfortunately babies and children will at some point in their lives be ill or experience an injury of sorts and I want to be prepared. That is why I jumped at an opportunity to complete the Spearhead Compliance Training Paediatric Emergency First Aid Course.

**Disclosure** I was allowed to complete this course for free in return for a review and in return for helping to raise awareness of the Birmingham Childrens Hospital Charity fundraising. This review is my honest opinion, being allowed to complete the training free of charge has not affected my opinion.

About Spearhead Compliance Training -  Spearhead is a company that delivers compliance based training to organisations nationwide. It was founded by two Directors who served with HM Forces delivering training in hostile environments. Spearhead now comprises of more than 65 ex-military trainers who all possess the skills required to deliver these training courses.

They offer a wide range of courses from Health & Safety to Food Hygiene, from Teacher training to first aid. There are both face to face sessions & e-learning available (dependent on the course you wish to partake in).  Their courses are for individuals and workforces a like.

About the Paediatric Emergency First Aid Course -  The aim of the course is to give you the knowledge to be able to provide immediate care to a child who is ill or has been injured prior to the arrival of qualified medical assistance.

The course costs £20 per person.

Spearhead are supporting Birmingham Childrens Hospital and so 50% of the training course fee is being donated to this worthy cause. It is estimated that more than 3000 babies/infants died in the year ending April 2014. Spearhead want parents to learn the vital First Aid information that could save a babies life, as well as helping to fundraise towards a charity that deals with sick or injured children.

"Every year, over 257,000 sick children from across the UK are treated at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Many face incredibly difficult circumstances.  Their stories of courage, determination and hope are truly amazing. The medical and nursing teams provide the best possible treatment and the very highest standards of care, but want to do so much more for the children who rely on them. You can help by completing our course or donating on their website HERE"

They have a goal of raising £10,000 towards this cause and hope to achieve this by getting 1000 people to complete the course by May 2015.


My thoughts on the course - The course provided me with a good basic knowledge of how to administer first aid to babies, infants and children. It highlighted how the care required changes as a child gets older.

I found the course easy to follow. Sometimes online courses can be very long winded, full of complex terms and hard to take in given the amount of information thrown at you. This course was broken down in to 11 easily managed modules. There was a range of text, pictures and videos to aid your learning. You are also able to mark each page (with a manageable amount of learning) as completed so that you can go away and come back to your learning later on, learning at a pace that suits you.

I was shocked with some of the statistics given as part of this e-learning. For example -

• Choking is the 3rd most common cause of infant death in the UK after road traffic accidents and house fires, killing on average 24 under 5's per year in England and Wales.
• 50% of the population doesn't know what to do if someone chokes.
• You have 3-4 minutes from when the child starts choking before death can occur.
• Only 50% of the population would do back blows (the correct procedure) while 10% would attempt to stick their fingers down the childs throat which could push the blockage further down, worsening the situation.

I particularly like the videos of how to administer CPR & First Aid. They were easy to follow, not too long and weren't accompanied by overly long text explanations. Once you have completed all the modules one of the co-founders, John Loveday, has left a video thanking you not only for completing the course but for your contribution towards their fundraising effort. I thought this was a really nice personal touch.

After the message from Mr Loveday you are given a test, once you have completed & passed the test you are then able to print off a certificate to show you have completed the training.

I found the course very easy given the clear and concise nature of it's learning material. I left feeling more knowledgeable and comfortable that I would know what to do in an emergency situation involving a baby/infant/child. On top of this personal gain you get the added knowledge that you have contributed to such a worthwhile cause.

Final thoughts - I would highly recommend this course to parents, grandparents or anyone looking after a child on a regular basis.

Go along, improve your knowledge and don't be the 50% of people who wouldn't know how to cope with a choking baby or child. I have in the past found e-learning very boring and fruitless but can confidently say I learnt a lot from this course.

I will leave the links for the training down below, along with the links for the Birmingham Childrens Hospital Charity incase you want to read some more about the amazing work they do or want to leave a donation.

As always thanks for reading! xoxo

Spearhead Compliance Training Website
Online Paediatric Emergency First Aid Course
The Birmingham Childrens Hospital Website
The Birmingham Childrens Hospital Donation Page