St. John Ambulance First Aid Course

St. John Ambulance is a charitable institution in the United Kingdom that provides first-aid training courses and materials to workplaces and schools per HSE standards.

Here are some of the many first-aid training courses being offered by St. John Ambulance UK.

Whether you belong to a private company or an educational and formative centre, you may be able to find the training course that meets your employer’s needs.

Please note that Skills Training Group are not associated with St John Ambulance and our first aid courses are completely independent.

Last reviewed: September 2026 — checked against Resuscitation Council UK Guidelines 2025.

Prices checked: 2 September 2026. The St John Ambulance figures below are the published open-course “from” prices on the St John Ambulance course shop, and the Skills Training Group figures are the prices on our own course pages. All exclude VAT. SJA now prices most courses two ways – Classic (fully classroom) and Blended (online theory plus classroom) – and the “from” price is the blended one. Course fees change, often every year, so check the current price on each provider’s own website before you budget.

What Is the St. John Ambulance First Aid Training Course?

As a medical aid charity run primarily by volunteers, St. John Ambulance offers more than two dozen educational courses to empower people, train volunteers, and generate funding.

These short courses can last anywhere from a few hours to less than a handful of days. They are designed to prepare those without prior experience to respond in the event of a medical emergency.

Those who complete courses from St John Ambulance or similar, often cheaper, charities are given certifications for a period of 3 years and are expected to activate in case an emergency situation arises.

St. John Ambulance First Aid Course Offerings

Here are the first aid courses being offered by St. John Ambulance UK and the situations where they may be most applicable.

Prices and training availability vary by location and by how the course is delivered. Both providers sell two different things: a seat on an open course at a training venue, priced per learner, and a whole course delivered on your own site, priced for the group. Those are not directly comparable, so check which one a quote refers to. In the list below, we compare SJA’s published open-course prices with the cost of our own first aid courses.

First Aid Courses For Work

While not every workplace can be classified as high-risk, accidents and medical emergencies do occur.

Having someone with first aid experience means that workplaces can stabilise patients until professional help arrives.

Emergency First Aid at Work

The EFAW course allows employees to help their workplace meet regulatory requirements regarding first aid and emergency response.

• Duration/Schedule: 1 day/09:00-16:30
• SJA Price: From £160.00 blended, £175.00 classroom (excluding VAT); £1,230.00 for the whole course on your site
• STG Price: £95 (excluding VAT)

View our EFAW Course here.

First Aid at Work

The FAW course is designed to turn employees into first-aiders in a matter of days. It’s a course that allows companies to become HSE-compliant by having designated first aid practitioners available.

• Duration/Schedule: 3 days/09:00-16:30
• SJA Price: From £335.00 blended, £410.00 classroom (excluding VAT); £2,460.00 for the whole course on your site
• STG Price: £195 (excluding VAT), delivered as 6 hours of e-learning plus 2 practical days

View our FAW Course here.

First Aid at Work Requalification

The first aid at work requalification course allows people to renew their First Aid at Work certificate and update their skills before the current certificate expires. A First Aid at Work certificate is valid for three years – it is a certificate, not a licence.

There is no grace period. Book the requalification course so that it finishes before the expiry date, because once a certificate has lapsed the holder can no longer act as a workplace first aider. HSE guidance L74 also suggests that if a certificate has been expired for more than about a month, it may be more sensible to sit the full three-day course again.

• Duration/Schedule: 2 days/09:00-16:30
• SJA Price: From £240.00 blended, £305.00 classroom (excluding VAT); £1,830.00 for the whole course on your site
• STG Price: £120 (excluding VAT)

View our FAW Requalification Course here.

Mental Health Workplace First Aider

St John Ambulance runs a two-day Mental Health First Aid course that teaches people to recognise the signs of mental ill-health and respond. This matters for compliance as well as culture: the 2024 revision of the HSE guidance L74 expects employers to consider mental health in their first-aid needs assessment, not just physical injury.

Check the awarding body and level before you book – providers use different qualifications and titles for what looks like the same course.

• Duration/Schedule: 2 days
• SJA Price: £385.00 (excluding VAT); £2,868.00 for the whole course on your site
• STG Price: From £99 (excluding VAT) for the Level 1 introduction, £180 at Level 2 and £295 for the Level 3 Award

See our mental health first aid courses.

Automated External Defibrillation (AED) – Half Day

This course is designed to help delegates save lives quickly in the event of cardiac arrest. There is a particular focus on the use of an AED. If you are introducing a defibrillator at your workplace, it is worth understanding the legal requirements for defibrillators in the UK. Worth knowing: under Resuscitation Council UK Guidelines 2025, anyone may use an AED and no training is legally required to do so. Training simply makes people much more likely to act, and to act quickly.

• Duration/Schedule: 3 hours/09:00-12:00
• SJA Price: £145.00 (excluding VAT)
• STG Price: £55 (excluding VAT)

See our AED defibrillator course here.

CPR Certificate

A short CPR or basic life support session lets a company train as many employees as possible to start compressions and use a defibrillator, which is what actually changes survival after a cardiac arrest. St John Ambulance no longer lists a standalone CPR course on its open-course shop – its half-day Automated External Defibrillation course above covers CPR and AED use together.

Under Resuscitation Council UK Guidelines 2025, you should call 999 for any unresponsive person before you assess their breathing, put the phone on speaker so the call handler can help, and start chest compressions at a depth of 5 to 6 cm and a rate of 100 to 120 a minute. Anyone who is untrained or unwilling to give rescue breaths should do hands-only CPR.

• Duration/Schedule: 3 hours
• SJA Price: No standalone CPR course listed; see the AED course above
• STG Price: £80 per person at one of our venues, or £395 (excluding VAT) for a group of up to 12 at your site

See our basic life support training here.

First Aid Courses for Schools and Academies

Children are also particularly prone to situations that may require first aid.

Teaching staff, as well as non-teaching personnel, should be better prepared for any accidents or incidents that may occur.

See our school first aid courses.

Blended Paediatric First Aid (2 days)

This course is a hybrid course with online/in-person sessions. It prepares caretakers for emergency scenarios and meets the Ofsted Early Years and Childcare Register requirements.

• Duration/Schedule: 2 days/09:00-16:30
• SJA Price: £170.00 (excluding VAT); £1,020.00 for the whole course on your site
• STG Price: £95 (excluding VAT)

Emergency Paediatric First Aid – 1 Day

The emergency paediatric first aid course helps childcarers prepare for emergency situations that can affect young children and babies. It is a more basic course.

• Duration/Schedule: 1 day
• SJA Price: Not listed as a separate open course; ask about on-site delivery
• STG Price: £70 (excluding VAT)

See our Emergency Paediatric first aid course here.

Schools’ First Aid

This course is designed for school and academy staff to help them protect students from serious injuries and life-threatening medical emergencies.

• Duration/Schedule: 1 day/09:00-16:30
• SJA Price: £155.00 (excluding VAT); £930.00 for the whole course on your site, or £760.00 for the half-day version
• STG Price: £495 (excluding VAT) for a one-day on-site course covering the whole group at your school

First Aid Courses for Individuals

Members of the general public may also avail of St John’s training for basic first aid that may arise during sporting accidents and mild injuries.

Basic Sports First Aid

Non-first aiders may avail of this course to respond to sports-based injuries such as unresponsiveness and even provide CPR when necessary.

• Duration/Schedule: SJA 1 day; Skills Training Group 2 days
• SJA Price: £95.00 (excluding VAT)
• STG Price: £100 (excluding VAT) per person, with on-site training at your venue quoted separately

See our sports first aid courses.

What Has Changed Since This Page Was First Written

Two things are worth flagging if you last looked at this comparison a few years ago.

• St John Ambulance now leads with blended prices. Most of its main courses are sold in two versions, Classic (fully classroom) and Blended (online theory plus classroom days), and the headline “from” figure is the blended one. That is why some SJA prices look lower than they used to.
• The course range has moved on. SJA has added a four-day First Aid and Specialist Trauma (FAST) Level 3 course and a five-day First Response Emergency Care Level 3 (FREC3) qualification, and it no longer sells a standalone CPR certificate as an open course.

How to Compare First Aid Course Prices Fairly

Before you pick a provider on price alone, check these six things:

• VAT. Every figure on this page excludes VAT. Some providers quote inclusive prices, which makes them look dearer than they are.
• Per learner or per course. An on-site price covers the whole group up to a maximum number of delegates. If you are training eight people it can work out far cheaper than eight open-course seats; if you are training one, it will not.
• Classroom or blended. Blended usually costs less and takes fewer days out of the business, but the total learning time should be the same, and every practical skill still has to be taught and assessed face to face.
• What the certificate is, and how long it lasts. First Aid at Work and Emergency First Aid at Work certificates last three years whoever issues them.
• Whether the syllabus matches your risks. The HSE expects your first-aid needs assessment to drive the course you buy, including mental health and, where the risk assessment identifies it, life-threatening bleeding.
• Whether the clinical content is current. Training materials have had to follow Resuscitation Council UK Guidelines 2025 since January 2026.

The HSE does not approve or vet first aid training providers, so the due diligence is the employer’s. Its guidance L74 sets out what a competent provider looks like, and St John Ambulance, the British Red Cross and St Andrew’s First Aid are the three Voluntary Aid Societies the HSE recognises as standard setters.

All prices on this page were checked on 2 September 2026 against each provider’s own website. They change regularly, so confirm the current figure before you book.

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