European First Aid – EC First Aid finalises draft

The EC First Aid, SAM.I.’s body of experts in first aid and first aid training, came together from 17-18 June 2016 in Cologne to finalise their recommendations on cross-border recognition of first aid certificates and to plan a European first aid event for their publication.

Samaritans from Austria, Germany, Italy and Latvia met at ASB’s federal office to write the final draft of their recommendation paper on cross-border recognition of first aid standards. Currently, national regulations often make recognition of first aid certificates across borders difficult. For professions with a responsibility for safety, this can pose an obstacle on the Single European labour market.

Factually, courses in EU member states are based on the same state of the art of emergency medicine, as regularly put together by expert bodies such as the European Resuscitation Council. The obstacles in cross-border recognition stem from the national prescription of framework details that have no or only a negligible effect on the overall quality of the courses.

The forthcoming recommendation paper aims to improve this situation by defining the course content by means of learning results and defining more general framework quality criteria than found in current national regulations. Ultimately, first aid courses should be recognisable in other EU member states by means of existing educational recognition mechanisms such as the European Qualification Framework (EQF).

The recommendation paper is planned to be published in the autumn of 2016, coinciding with a publication event in Brussels, at which first aid training by instructors from multiple countries will be offered.