Exceeding requirements for paediatric first aid

The Old School House Day Nursery near Newmarket looks after almost 200 children in the Early Years age range and has around 30 members of staff. Nearly all staff have the paediatric first aid qualification.

The nursery believes that they must embed first aid into daily practice to ensure that staff are confident and competent. They put this focus on Paediatric First Aid through monthly team training sessions, including updates, quizzes, videos and mini assessments and ‘real-life’ emergency simulations, using child and baby manikins to help staff to not panic in emergency situations. The setting also runs staff questionnaires with questions such as what areas staff feel confident in or not, and regularly invites local medical professionals to staff and parent evenings - for example having a community nurse visit and talk about allergies and anaphylactic shock.

The manager, deputy and team leaders carry out 6 monthly reviews of the first aid policy, audit assessing the paediatric first aid requirements alongside this. The Senior Management Team also complete an annual one-day paediatric first aid refresher course to keep them up-to-date with any changes, sharing them with staff.

The Old School House is also a training centre, and uses the NDNA Membership Network to share good practice and make its paediatric first aid training available to other settings.

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