Take first aid handbooks from various countries and make a comparison: you will notice some differences between the techniques used. To deal with this matter, the Belgian Red Cross – Flanders is leading a project called “European First Aid Manual”. The aim of this project co-financed by the European Commission is to harmonise the content of first aid books.

In this framework, a team of 28 European experts, managed by the Belgian Red Cross – Flanders, will draw-up a number of evidence-based guidelines. All these experts will meet to share their work in Riga on 10 and 11 February 2006. Besides, a steering committee, consisting of members of the Finnish, French, Hellenic, Latvian, Austrian and Spanish Red Cross, the European Reference Centre for First Aid Education, the Red Cross/European Union office monitors regularly the activities.

The concrete results of this two-year project will be European guidelines on first aid, a reference document and a manual (including the guidelines of the European Resuscitation Council). With these tools, the first aid managers of the Red Cross/Red Crescent National Societies will have at disposal files to create or update first aid books and courses. The experts’ work focuses on the training of the general public and on the subjects of the European First Aid Certificate. The whole project will end by May 2007.