Our Mission
First Aid Training Co-operative’s mission, first and foremost, is to provide first aiders with the knowledge and confidence to save lives. We are dedicated to delivering first aid training to businesses, the voluntary sector and local authorities as well as individuals from all walks of life.
Why choose us?
Our Accreditations. First Aid Training Co-operative is an ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001 certified organisation, and a member of the Federation of First Aid Training Organisations, Co-operatives UK, and a Living Wage Employer. When doing your due diligence on first aid training providers, it is also important to note that we are HSE GEIS3 Compliant. (Please click on the images below for more direct information about these accreditations.)
We are proud to have provided high-quality training to over 5000 people per year from across the world, with over 95% of our students continuously rating us Very Good or Excellent.
First Aid Training Provider
Ethos and History
First Aid Training Co-operative is run by Cory and Tom, who previously ran two of Scotland’s largest outdoor first aid training businesses: Outdoor First Aid Limited and Collective Training Limited.
Tom and Cory both found out first hand the challenges faced by self-employed first aid trainers, including large amounts of administrative work, lack of opportunities to share practice with other trainers, and keeping up in an industry with ever increasing regulation and changing best practice.
They wanted to find a way to not only continue to deliver first class first aid training, but also to tackle some of these issues for first aid training businesses.
By converging their two businesses, First Aid Training Co-operative was formed, and now offers a centralised administration to relieve the administrative burden for First Aid Training businesses, as well as providing opportunity for trainers to share best practice and receive training themselves.
First Aid Training Co-operative’s ethos is that, as a first aid trainer and member of the Co-operative, you are free to grow your business as much as you like, work as much as you like and continue to benefit from new clients you bring to the Co-operative. It’s a mutually beneficial system.
Find out more about the nature of our Co-operative here: About us
First Aid Training Co-operative Timeline
FATC was incorporated with support from Cooperative Development Scotland, part of Scottish Enterprise. Formed initially by bringing together the two businesses of the founder members, Tom Durham and Cory Jones.
Creation of our innovative Digital First Aid Manuals, the first of many moves away from using paper, and providing a first aid resource ‘in your pocket when you need it’ for all of our learners. Became ISO9001 certificated too, allowing us to certificate our own courses and free ourselves from Awarding Body regulatory burden.
Awarded contract to deliver first aid training for all staff members of Forestry and Land Scotland (formerly the Forestry Commission). The first of many contracts that we now deliver for local authorities, government agencies and other large organisations
Covid-19 Pandemic, we were able to weather the storm successfully by being a very ‘light’ dynamic organisation, with very few fixed overheads. We also quickly moved our training online, allowing us to continue to deliver essential training to those who needed it.
We also made the most significant of 4 business acquisitions to date, when we acquired Medi-K Training and incorporated it into the FATC brand. This made us the sector leader in Equestrian First Aid, and gave us a big boost with market share in England.
A period of significant growth as a backlog of training, coupled with the increase in client base following 2 acquisitions meant we doubled in size. We employed our first PAYE staff this year, both trainers and office team members, and a full time National Training and Quality Assurance Manager. We became an accredited Living Wage employer, and re-wrote our Articles of Association with help from Coops UK to introduce a profit share agreement that includes all Associates, not just full Members.
A year of strategic consolidation: we grew our team, particularly to include new trainers from the BAME community, we developed a trainer’s app to more or less eliminate paper and drastically improve efficiency across our business. We did a lot of work on our environmental impact became a carbon neutral business. We’ve also achieved ISO14001 and 45001 to complement the ISO9001 certification. Finalists of Federation of Small Businesses Micro Business of the Year competition.
Continued to move towards our sustainability goals and were given a Gold “For Our Planet” Award (Ecologi). Expanded our portfolio by developing a suite of mental health first aid courses and training a team of Mental Health First Aid Trainers to deliver them.
Followed up on our Small Business Climate Coalition registration and progressed to a Bronze Award Member for our ongoing commitment to our carbon footprint monitoring in particular.
