Training Advice
Choose between EFAW and FAW for your Northern Ireland workplace, with practical examples, course differences and guidance on additional training.
QUICK ANSWER
Which first-aid course should you choose?
Emergency First Aid at Work (EFAW) may be appropriate when its emergency first-aid content meets your workplace’s assessed needs. First Aid at Work (FAW) includes that foundation and covers a wider range of injuries and illnesses. Match the training to what your first-aider may need to manage. Employee count or industry alone does not make either course a legal requirement, and some circumstances need additional training beyond either qualification.
Suppose you’re choosing first-aid training for an office. Most of the working day involves computers, calls and meetings.
Now picture a vehicle-repair workshop, where people lift vehicles, use tools and handle hot components.
Both employers need arrangements for someone becoming ill or injured. The office must still prepare for sudden illness, while the workshop’s activities make burns, eye injuries and other significant injuries more foreseeable.
Start with those needs when comparing EFAW and FAW. They give you a reason for choosing the training before you look at whether it takes one day or three.
Start with what your first aider may need to manage
Look at the work people actually do and the injuries or illnesses a first-aider could reasonably need to manage.
Moving machinery, hot equipment and hazardous substances create different needs from routine desk work. Relevant known health needs can also affect the training choice, even where physical hazards are limited.
Our view: If the emergency skills covered by EFAW meet your workplace’s needs, that’s where we’d normally start. If your first-aiders may need to manage a wider range of injuries or illnesses, we’d look more closely at FAW. Particular hazards may also require additional training.
Your first-aid needs assessment—the check of what first-aid provision your workplace needs—should help you connect those circumstances to the training.
The useful question is: what might your first-aider need to recognise and deal with before medical help arrives?
What is the difference between EFAW and FAW?
EFAW provides the emergency foundation. It includes assessing a situation, helping an unresponsive casualty, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), using an automated external defibrillator (AED), choking, bleeding and shock. It also covers seizures and minor injuries, including minor burns.
FAW includes that foundation and adds a wider range of injuries and illnesses: fractures and suspected spinal injuries, chest and eye injuries, more extensive burns, poisoning, severe allergic reactions, heart attack, stroke, asthma and diabetic emergencies.
The useful difference is the range of situations the first-aider is trained to recognise and manage.
For example, both courses address bleeding. Choosing FAW is not simply choosing “the course that covers bleeding”. Equally, EFAW’s minor-burn content should not be mistaken for the broader burns coverage in FAW.
At Northlight, EFAW takes one day and FAW takes three days. You can read the full content on our Emergency First Aid at Work and First Aid at Work course pages.
Source note: HSE, First aid at work, L74, Appendices 5–6. Northlight’s current course pages describe the training offered.
When could EFAW be an appropriate choice?
Return to the administrative team. Its assessment identifies a need for a trained first-aider. Employees mainly work at desks, and no particular machinery, substance or unusual physical-work hazards have been identified.
We would examine EFAW first. Its emergency skills may meet the needs identified without requiring the broader injury and illness content of FAW.
That does not mean an office is risk-free. The first-aider could still need to respond to a collapse, choking or bleeding. Those possibilities are part of the reason emergency training can be appropriate.
Now change one fact: the employer identifies a specific need to prepare for a severe allergic reaction.
The work is still administrative, but the training decision needs another look. Anaphylaxis is included in the broader FAW syllabus. We would now recommend training that explicitly covers anaphylaxis. FAW is one route; an appropriate combination of EFAW and additional training may also meet the need. We would not book an unchanged EFAW course simply because this is an office.
The lesson is to check both the work and the people. A particular health need can change suitable training without changing the workplace’s physical hazards.
This is an illustrative example, not a rule that every office needs EFAW or that one health condition automatically requires FAW for everyone.
When should you consider FAW or additional training?
In the vehicle-repair example, lifting vehicles, working with tools and handling hot components create a different set of foreseeable injuries.
We would normally investigate FAW here. Its broader coverage has a clear connection to potential bone, burn and eye injuries; the recommendation comes from those activities, rather than the word “garage”.
Now suppose the assessment also identifies a risk of life-threatening bleeding.
Do not assume that booking a standard FAW course settles the entire training question. Tell the provider what the assessment has identified and confirm that the training covers the necessary response, including any specialist equipment your arrangements call for.
A first-aid kit containing equipment is not evidence that your first-aiders have been trained to use it.
Other circumstances, such as remote work or particular chemical hazards, can also need more specific preparation. FAW is broader than EFAW, but it is not a guarantee that every specialist need is covered.
Here the decision has two parts: investigate FAW for the wider injury needs, then confirm any additional content required by the particular hazards.
Source note: HSE, L74, paragraph 59, paragraphs 72–73 and Appendix 4 address particular hazards and additional training.
What does Northern Ireland law actually require?
The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1982, as amended, require adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and suitable personnel for employees injured or taken ill at work. Training and qualifications must suit the circumstances, and employees must be told about the arrangements.
HSENI has adopted HSE guidance to help employers meet these duties. HSE publications may refer to Great Britain’s 1981 Regulations; the relevant law here is Northern Ireland’s 1982 Regulations, as amended.
Employee numbers and industry inform the overall assessment and official guidance. Neither alone establishes a legal requirement for EFAW or FAW. The recommendations in our examples are Northlight’s professional judgement about the needs described.
Where an appointed person is adequate and appropriate, that arrangement may be sufficient. The person takes charge of first-aid arrangements, including equipment and calling emergency services; the role itself does not require first-aid training. EFAW and FAW are therefore not a compulsory choice for every employer, and other appropriate training routes can meet assessed needs.
HSENI ceased approving first-aid training and qualifications in 2017, so an “HSENI-approved” claim is not a current approval.
Source note: NI 1982 Regulations, regulations 3–4; 2017 Amendment Regulations, regulation 2; HSENI, First aid at work and First aid.
Check the training and arrangements before you book
Take the needs you have identified to the provider and compare them with the course content. Check how any additional topics will be taught and assessed, and what evidence of that training you will receive.
HSE’s provider-selection guidance also covers trainers, assessment, quality assurance and certification. A relevant qualification matters, but its name alone does not explain whether it meets your particular needs.
You do not need to complete EFAW before taking Northlight’s full FAW course. Choose the appropriate starting course rather than treating them as compulsory steps in a ladder.
Then check availability separately. Having someone with suitable training does not ensure they are present whenever help is needed. Our guide, How many first aiders do I need in my workplace?, explains staffing and cover. The First Aid Requirements Calculator can also help you start planning provision.
Northlight’s EFAW and FAW certificates are valid for three years. Plan renewal before expiry; existing FAW holders can check our Requalification First Aid at Work course for the renewal route and eligibility.
HSENI and HSE strongly recommend annual refresher training during that period. This is a recommendation, not a statutory requirement to attend a course every year.
Northlight recommends keeping a short record of why you chose the training. Revisit the decision when activities, relevant workforce needs or working arrangements change.
THE NORTHLIGHT TAKEAWAY
Before you choose a course
List the situations your first-aider may face.
Include relevant illness as well as injuries arising from the work.
Match those needs to the syllabus.
Check the content rather than relying on the course name, duration or Level 3 label.
Flag any specialist gaps.
Confirm additional training and equipment skills where your assessment identifies them.
Check cover and renewal separately.
Arrange for suitably trained people to be available when needed, and keep their qualifications current.
Still unsure whether the training fits?
Contact Northlight with an outline of your workplace activities and the first-aid needs you have identified. We can help you compare the relevant courses and discuss any additional training needs.
Sources & Further Reading
Northern Ireland legislation: Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1982, regulations 3–4, read with the 2017 Amendment Regulations, regulation 2.
HSENI: First aid at work. NI requirements, adoption of HSE guidance and changes to training approval.
HSENI: First aid. Appointed-person responsibilities, appropriate training and refresher guidance.
HSE: First aid at work: Guidance on regulations — L74. Third edition, amended through 2024; particularly paragraphs 59 and 72–75 and Appendices 4–6.
HSE: First aid at work – your questions answered — INDG214. Training choices and assessment considerations.
HSE: Selecting a first-aid training provider: A guide for employers — GEIS3. Rev2, February 2024.
Safety Training Awards: STA Level 3 Award in Emergency First Aid at Work and STA Level 3 Award in First Aid at Work. Qualification specifications v26.1, ©2026.
Review sooner if NI legislation, HSENI/HSE guidance, qualification specifications or relevant Northlight course information changes.
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