Introduction

Cardiac arrest is unfortunately fairly common, which is why there are defibrillators installed in many public areas such as shopping centres, busy streets and educational institutions.

Various factors can contribute to cardiac arrest, not just a heart attack, including:

• cardiomyopathy and some inherited heart conditions
• congenital heart disease
• heart valve disease
• acute myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle)

External causes include:

• electrocution
• drug overdose
• severe haemorrhage (known as hypovolaemic shock) – losing a large amount of blood
• hypoxia - due to a severe drop in oxygen levels

An automated external defibrillator (AED) is an intelligent but user-friendly machine that allows someone to help a person experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. When the heart goes into cardiac arrest, it loses its rhythm and begins to fibrillate, quivering irregularly. With time critical in the survival outcome for that person, the machine analyses heart rhythm to deliver an electric shock, or defibrillation, to help the heart re-establish an effective rhythm and drastically increase their chance of survival while waiting for emergency services to take over.

This British Red Cross certification delivers current defibrillator training to equip delegates with the skills, knowledge and confidence to help someone in cardiac arrest in the workplace.

Course Outline

Practical and theory-based exercises and tutorials take delegates through all the processes and procedures vital to using an AED correctly and administering basic life support.

The course reflects national standards and industry best practices and is fully accredited in line with British Red Cross. In addition, choose to learn with Citrus, and delegates will benefit from our custom-built training facilities and customer-first approach.
 
Our occupationally experienced and qualified trainers coach delegates on this course, completing the session with a practical assessment using an AED. They must pass the assessment to receive a British Red Cross AED with Life Support certificate, valid for three years.

Course Programme

This course teaches delegates all the essentials of using an AED, helping someone unresponsive, breathing and not breathing. In addition, delegates will review legal requirements, ensure safety compliance, and understand procedures and appropriate documentation and classifications.

The course content includes:

• Personal safety, assessing the incident and patient priorities: DR, ABC check and sending for help - danger, response, airway, breathing, circulation
• How to deal with an unconscious casualty
• How to recognise a casualty who is not breathing normally
• Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
• Defibrillation (recognition of heart rhythms)
• CPR and use of AED on a casualty (practical simulation)
• General guidelines for using a defibrillator
• Recording of information (sample report form)
• Contacting and handing over to the emergency services
• Safety considerations

On Completion

At the end of the training, successful delegates will have the knowledge, skill and confidence to administer AED aid to someone suffering from cardiac arrest and have a basic understanding and application of life support. 

Upon completion, they will receive a British Red Cross AED with Life Support certificate, valid for three years from the issue date.

Who Should Attend?

The AED defibrillator training course is suitable for first aid qualified and non qualified delegates age 16+ requiring training to use an AED machine safely. 

Course Duration

The half-day AED Defib and Life Support training course certifies delegates as competent to use an AED Defib machine.

Why Citrus?

We dedicate our efforts to unrivalled quality and the customer experience at Citrus Training. As a result, we are the leading UK-based provider of health, safety and technical training and assessment services to the Built Environment and Utility sectors. 

Citrus Training serves 85 of the top 100 building services companies in the market. With nearly 20-years of sector-specific experience, we’ve gained invaluable training experiences and knowledge to pass on to our delegates.

Our occupationally experienced First Aid educators have successfully trained over 25,000 delegates across the First Aid and Wellbeing training category. Delivering courses at our nationwide, industry-leading and accredited training centres and offering the very best of training standards and quality assurance. 

We have thousands of public dates and locations nationally for First Aid Training, or can offer dedicated training for specific requirements such as on-site groups. Whatever you need, our training services help bring together the optimum mix of solutions to ensure you can apply the hierarchy of risk control most effectively. 

Things You Need to Know

The course has physical elements as required to use an AED, so it is vital that delegates attending can physically carry out the activities detailed in the AED course programme.

For training held at your location, please ensure that the classroom you make available has a power supply and is a suitable size for the number of delegates attending. In addition, please ensure that the practical area has been risk-assessed, is free from harm, and is ideal for training.