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 certification requirements as first aid and 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 |
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 First Aid I (Basic)
- Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
- Automated External Defibrillation (AED)
- Control of major bleeding
CorePass First Aid II (Intermediate)
- Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
- Automated External Defibrillation (AED)
- 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)
- Bag-mask-valve 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:
- 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
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).
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:
- IPSQA CorePass® Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)
- IPSQA CorePass® INSARAG First Responder
- IPSQA CorePass® Workplace Fire Supression
- IPSQA Award in Public Safety (Emergency Medical Responder)
- IPSQA Certificate in Public Safety (Emergency Medical Technician)
Candidates must demonstrate skills consistently with approved references such as the Red Cross Global First Aid Centre and International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR).
Become an Accredited Testing Centre.
Contact us or your local Accredited Testing Centre for further information.