Back in December Prestige Safety Services HQ was contacted by a local school asking if we could carry out a three day First Aid at Work Course for one, yes I said one person in January.

Our initial response was that it just was not cost effective to do it that way but then we suggested a little bit of joined up working to see if we could make things work.

Before we knew it we had agreed to hold three days aside in January for the course. We contacted other schools in the area to see if they had any staff members that required training. It was suggested that should we manage to find six delegates by the end of the week then the course would run. Almost instantly another local school got in touch and said they would like to send two members of staff which was great, we were half way there!

The next day came and went and there were no more responses, in fact the rest of the week went by and there was no more take up, despite the course being cheaper than using St Johns Ambulance, who are probably the biggest provider of first aid courses and most school business managers first port of call when it comes to booking first aid courses.

The end of the week came and with a disappointed feeling we contacted the two schools who had expressed an interest to tell them that unfortunately the course could not go ahead. The disappointment was clear with one business manager stating what a shame it was as she was desperate for the training but other options were, “just so expensive”. We listened then suggested a compromise. We offered to commit to the course for just three members of staff but the price had to go up. There was still a significant saving on offer but we wanted to do better so we promised with the agreement of the two schools that we would run the course whatever happened at the revised (higher price) with the promise that should we get 6 or more people to book onto the course that the course would return to its original price.

We sent out another email to all the schools in the area stating that the course would be definitely running and what the revised price was. It was beginning to get close to Christmas and we heard nothing back then a week before the course was due to run we had a third school book a place. We sent invoices out resigned to the fact that we would be delivering the course to a class size of 4 when the day before the course was due to run two more places were booked. We were extremely pleased to reissue all the schools with a new invoice with the savings promised at the outset. In all we managed to save schools £100 per delegate over attending a St Johns Ambulance First Aid at Work Course.

What made this even better is that not just anyone could attend this course. It was held in the school that originally asked for their one member of staff to be trained, it was only open to people that currently work in schools, it was delivered in a bespoke manner focusing on the kind of events, illness and injury’s that occur in the educational environment and it was delivered by trainers that currently work on the front line in the emergency services who are actively administering first aid to real people on a daily basis.

Our Passion

We are passionate that as much of the money that schools receive is spent directly on the education of the nations young people as possible. If schools in academy groups or even those that are independent of each other communicate and work together then even bigger savings can be made. We are keen to work with school business managers to ensure schools achieve the best possible value when it comes to their first aid training needs, whichever of the relevant fist aid courses that may be.

If you would like more information on how we can help you maximise your savings without compromising on the quality of training you are receiving then please get in touch at info@79.170.44.128 or on 0800 246 5014.