News & Updates

Following updated medical guidelines and industry procedures, STA would like to inform ATCs, tutors, assessors and internal quality assurers of the following changes within STA Award for Open Water Safety resource manual.

Page 111: Treatment for Marine Stings (4th bullet point) has been updated. The procedure is to now:

• Sit the casualty down and reassure
• Rinse the affected area with salt water (not fresh water)
• Wear gloves and remove any spines from the skin using tweezers or the edge of a plastic card (bank card or similar)
• Soak the area in very warm water (as hot as the casualty can tolerate) for at least 30 minutes
• Send the casualty to hospital
• Monitor the casualty for a possible allergic reaction.

Page 145: Searching for a Submerged Casualty. Updated procedures, replaces the information on page 145:

• Rescuing a submerged casualty should only be undertaken from the land, the surface of the water, or in shallow water up to a maximum of chest depth
• Deep water searching for a submerged casualty has therefore been removed.

Page 159 and 160: Spinal Casualty Rescue. Updated procedures, replaces the information on page 159 and 160:

• Head splint to be used for a casualty with a suspected spinal injury (face up or face down)
• A minimum of 2 rescuers are needed to stabilise a suspected spinal cord injury casualty before further team members arrive to extricate the casualty.

Tutors should review the online tutor upskill programme and manual update to ensure they fully understand the updated technical content.

To support ATCs, STA has updated the following STA Award for Open Water Safety resources which are now available within STA Online:

• E-Manual
• Resource Manual Errata Sheet
• Assessment Strategy
• PowerPoint Presentation
• Online Tutor Upskill
• MCQ Assessment Papers.

The STA Award for Open Water Safety e-manual has been updated to reflect these additions and is available now from the STA Swim Shop. An STA Award for Open Water Safety Resource Manual errata sheet has been created and will be sent out with all resource manual orders from today, it is also available to download from STA Online. The errata sheet can be sent to learners who have recently completed the qualification to update them accordingly.

PowerPoints – STA have also created an insert PowerPoint which only contains the updated slides to allow tutors to insert these into an already established presentation.

These changes will come into effect for any course starting on or after 1st January 2023. The updated resources must also be used for any courses starting on or after this date.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.