30/10/2025
On 27th October, we heard about the updated guidance from the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) and the Resuscitation Council UK (RCUK). To help us get a grasp of this, our awarding organisation, QNUK, put on a special webinar to outline the changes and answer some questions.
We understand there will be ongoing meetings with awarding and governing bodies to clarify matters and let the training community know, through their various awarding organisations, who deliver regulated first aid training.
So far, the main changes and takeaways I picked up on were;
The defib pad on the left side is now closer to the armpit than before, so removing a bra may not be necessary; that would be determined at the time of pad placement.
A change in the age definition for under-18s has often sparked debate about Paediatric first aid courses, but this has now been clarified.
🔸 Infant: from birth to 1st birthday.
🔸 Child: from 1 to 12 years old.
🔸 Adolescents from 13 to 18 years old.
CPR for infants has changed: 5 rescue breaths as before, but the compression ratio is now 15:2, and we use our thumbs to apply compressions, whereas before it was our fingers.
This new guidance has only been out for a few days, and we will have to await clarification from various bodies on the questions that many of us have asked.
As we advance, we will work with our awarding organisation (QNUK) to implement changes to the assessment criteria as they become known to us, and these will be reflected in our training deliveries from early 2026.
