CorePass® First Aid Series

From basic CPR to advanced first aid administering pain relief and oxygen, IPSQA’s CorePass® international first aid series has you covered.

IPSQA has come to the rescue of first aid! We aim to have a higher quality of internationally recognised certification whilst reducing the compliance burden on providers so they can make training fun and fit for purpose.

We have constantly heard from providers who are exhausted from “box ticking” and “form fatigue”, frustrated that these requirements were not adding any value to their candidate’s learning experience. Now, IPSQA offers a certification solution that focuses on quality, not compliance with easy to administer self-populating documentation and internal quality assurance that is periodically externally audited. Our Accredited Testing Centres can offer summative assessment against our range of IPSQA CorePass® first aid certification products, from basic to advanced levels often without needing to change their training materials. In particular, this allows military first aid programmes to easily offer concurrent civilian certification that can also be assessed under our National Security Protocol to protect the identity of special operators.

CorePass® First Aid can be used in a range of ways such as:

Integrated into training courses
Used as a stand alone assessment
Used in conjunction with national accreditation (where the ATC is approved as such)

The difference with IPSQA’s CorePass® First Aid series, is that we focus on the quality of the assessor, who often is the instructor.

Assessors for this CorePass series are required to also meet certification requirements as first aid and/or resuscitation instructors, to ensure our certification meets best practice.

Did you know?

That in New Zealand, WorkSafe do not mandate NZQA unit standards for first aid training. NZQA unit standards are often only required by those completing national qualifications or where prescribed such as by the Ministry of Education for Early Childhood Education providers.

That in Australia, the WorkSafe Australia Model Code of Practice for First Aid clearly states an equivalent to the national units of competency can be recognised, of which we have mapped our standards against.

That in the United Kingdom, the Health & Safety Executive also do not mandate that nationally accredited first aid courses must be used, with employers responsible to ensure employees are competent in first aid through a range of provider options including voluntary approval schemes and independent training where the training can prove their competence (i.e. IPSQA assessment providing proof of competence).

Consequently, IPSQA has mapped the requirements of the various national first aid requirements against our IPSQA product series.

	CorePass® First Aid I	CorePass® First Aid II	CorePass® First Aid III	CorePass® First Aid IV
Level	Basic	Intermediate	Advanced	Marine Medic
AUS Mapping	No	Yes	Yes	No
IMO Mapping	No	No	No	Yes (Medical First Aid)
NZ Mapping	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
UK Mapping	Yes	No	Yes	No
American Red Cross First Aid	No	Yes	Yes	No
American Red Cross BLS	No	No	Yes	Yes

Comparison of Corepass First Aid products. Mapping shows IPSQA product aligned to ensure all syllabus requirements are covered, however the mapping does not necessarily indicate reciprocity or authority to issue national units of competency/unit standards.

Our certification also allows the candidates’ name to be presented in over 7,000 languages using Unicode text that supports scripts such as Arabic (as example below), Latin, Cyrillic, Han and Devanagari.

Syllabus Overview

Whether used as a stand-alone assessment, or the assessment is integrated within a training programme, a summative assessment is performed by a designated IPSQA Assessor who will test the candidate against a range of skills and knowledge requirements including:

CorePass® Emergency Bleed Management

Control of major bleeding including use of torniquet (CAT)

CorePass® First Aid I (Basic)

Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
Automated External Defibrillation (AED)
Management of airway obstruction (choking)
Control of major bleeding

CorePass® First Aid II (Intermediate)

Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
Automated External Defibrillation (AED)
Management of airway obstruction (choking)
Control of major bleeding
Professional practice as first aider (ethics, privacy, culture etc)
Medical conditions (minimum of two)
Trauma conditions (minimum of two)

CorePass® First Aid III (Advanced)

Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
Management of airway obstruction (choking)
Bag-mask-valve, suction devices and oral airways
Administration of oxygen
Administration of pain relief medication
Automated External Defibrillation (AED)
Control of major bleeding
Professional practice as first aider (ethics, privacy, culture etc)
Patient assessment
Medical conditions
- Anaphylaxis
- Diabetic emergencies
- Epistaxis
- Emergency child birth
- Cardiac chest pain
- Epileptic seizure
- Asthma
- Stroke
- Mental health emergencies
Trauma conditions
- Crush/amputation injuries
- Drowning
- Eye injuries
- Decompression (dive) injuries
- Thermal emergencies
- Internal injuries
- Burns
- Suspension (orthostatic) trauma
- Head and spine trauma
- Poisoning
- Factures, strains and sprains
- Overdose
- Mass casualty triage
- Envenomation

CorePass® First Aid IV (Maritime Medic)

CorePass First Aid III (Advanced) plus the following to meet requirements under Table A-VI/4-1 STCW 1995 (as set by the International Maritime Organisation):

Nasopharyngeal and laryngeal mask airways
Human anatomy for first aid
Lifts, drags and carries
Patient packaging within shipborne environment
Ships medical chest and radio medical advice/approval

CorePass® Psychological First Aid I/II

Read about our Pyschological First Aid series.

CorePass® Child First Aid

Pre-requisite: CorePass First Aid I (Basic)

Legal considerations for child and infant first aid
Common life threatening first aid emergencies (child and infant)

Annual Skill Checks

Annual CPR skill checks are widely recommended by resuscitation councils and workplace safety authorities in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. With IPSQA’s supplementary Orange Card system, Accredited Testing Centres can record such checks (refreshers) to the candidates consolidated Global Transcript. This allows rapid verification of currency through the candidates unique QR code.

Continuing Professional Development

Many occupational health and safety regulators require that first aid training is tailored to the specific risks present in each workplace. As a result, standard training often needs to be supplemented with site- or role-specific continuing professional development (CPD) to address particular hazards and operational requirements.

IPSQA’s CPDPass offers an effective solution for capturing this specialist training as CPD. When such professional development is design, delivered, and quality-assured by an Accredited Testing Centre, CPDPass records these achievements, ensuring they are formally recognised on the candidate’s Global Transcript.

This approach provides Accredited Testing Centres with the autonomy to design and deliver CPD that meets the unique needs of their clients. At the same time, these centres remain responsible for the quality and relevance of the professional development they provide. By enabling the recording of site- and function-specific CPD, IPSQA’s CPDPass supports both regulatory compliance and the ongoing professional growth of candidates, offering a complete and verifiable record of their specialist CPD and achievements.

Examples of CPD that an ATC could provide include:

Anaphylasis: Use of Auto-Injector Devices
Management of Intoxicated Persons
Crush Injury Management in Disaster Situations
Management of Chemical Burns
Jellyfish Envenomation 101
Opioid Overdose Treatment using Naloxone (Nasal)
Health and Disability Commissioner (Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights) Regulations 1996
Treating Suspension Trauma for Working at Height Emergencies
Knowledge of ABC Company Emergency Plans
Ambulance Station Visit

A global transcript

A key innovation of IPSQA is our Global Transcript. A single, consolidated and verifiable digital record of candidates certifications, checks, PPE fit tests, continuing professional development achieved through any of our international network of Accredited Testing Centres.

Assessors with Real World Experience

A key difference with IPSQA first aid assessors is that they all have real world experience providing emergency medical care, whether it be from miliary service, front line ambulance, urgent medical care centres or hospital emergency departments. For vocational first aid standards used in New Zealand and Australia for example, anyone who completes a number of short courses can become a first aid instructor/assessor. Sustained and authentic experience in emergency medical care is non-negotiable as part of IPSQA assessor requirements, ensuring the credibility of our assessment system.

Under our Additional Assessor Requirements (AAR), IPSQA Assessors must hold:

IPSQA Assessor Course (Assessing candidates in accordance with ISO17024:2012)
A minimum of a Pre-Hospital Emergency Care qualification
A minimum of 200 hours clinical experience in emergency medical and trauma care (under audit/medical authority conditions)
And maintain currency through continuing professional development or maintaining registration or authority to practice.

Implementation is easy

Providing you have suitable resources and designated assessors, implementation is easy. Our IPSQA Assessor and ATC Administrator courses are just 8 and 1 hour respectively. In most cases existing training packages from third party suppliers can be used, providing they cover the assessment requirements outlined in the respective CorePass® first aid certification product. For example, the American Red Cross Adult & Pediatric First Aid/CPR/AED course assessments, meet the requirements for CorePass® First Aid II (Intermediate). ATC’s can purchase the full training package including assessments from the American Red Cross directly. Other approved resources are outlined to help make implementation simple.

We also provide an external moderation service if you want IPSQA to check your existing assessment tool against the syllabus if you do not want to undertake this task yourself (fees apply).

Recognition of Current Competency: Approval Notices

Accredited Testing Centres are authorised to undertake Recognition of Current Competency (RCC) for CorePass® products including the first aid series.

Centres may undertake their own mapping of evidence as part Recognition of Current Competency, or they may use a pre-approved process as prescribed in an IPSQA RCC Approval Notice.

Examples of credentials recognised under the CorePass® First Aid RCC Approval Notice include:

Medical Practitioner (i.e. General Practitiones) registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
Paramedic registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) or New Zealand Paramedic Council.
Nurse registered Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and currently practising in rural health, ambulance, military, emergency department or intensive care.
Emergency Medical Technician with Authority to Practice with an emergency ambulance service as recognised by the Ministry of Health (or Ambulance Regulator).

Eligibility for this approval requires that candidates are not subject to any restrictions imposed by their regulator or medical authority. The date of the CorePass® First Aid Certificate is aligned with the original date of issuance of the candidate’s registration or authority to practise.

Product Comparison

Our CorePass® scheme is different from our other certifications (such as CertPubS®, DefraQual®, ProQual, WorkQual etc), as it does not use the ISO17024:2012 standard. This means the assessor can also be the candidate’s instructor and a lighter level of quality assurance applies. Assessment is still robust with the Accredited Testing Provider still required to ensure assessment tools used are compliant and that evidence is retained for external audit and moderation.

For candidates seeking certification for related topics, IPSQA offers a range of other certification products including: