Water Safety Training for construction, ecology, vegetation, environmental and scientific industries.

It’s time to make a confession…. we didn’t use a governing body to regulate our DEFRA water safety training….because essentially there hasn’t been one…until now!

Our position as one of the market leaders in DEFRA Water Safety Training has come about due to ten years of work developing our own DEFRA water safety training modules based on the DEFRA Flood Rescue Concept of Operations. This is the same system that any other provider has also followed. We have retained customers through professional, high quality and standardised training, whilst listening to our clients and students.

We’ve even looked at how we make such important training easier to access and became the first company to create a system to deliver the DEFRA 1 Flood and Awareness Course ONLINE. 

If this worry’s you then don’t as our course is so accepted within the DEFRA framework that we have exclusive national contracts with DEFRA’s own departments such as Natural England.

There was no official DEFRA Water Safety instructor course to take, trust us we tried, as we are already respected trainers and inspectors in many areas of on water activity and we believe in standardised under written governed training. This can be shown by our recognition as RYA, MCA, RLSS and HSE/Ofqual centre.

The aim of safety training should be to support peoples safety in the work place. A lot of companies will tell you their system is best but its important to realise it’s their system and most likely not governed by a recognised non commercial body which is regulated by the government.

We were no different in some ways, like others we had to promote ourselves, justify our existence and make sure we fitted into the DEFRA Flood Concept of Operations. We needed to deliver training in locations that felt safe and adequate, until we set up our exclusive water safety training river centre.

We were never at ease with not having our own facilities as it didn’t fit into our historical beliefs and was hard to support. We believe that training needs to be standardised, safe and regulated but also achievable and user-friendly. This has come due to our background as consultants to countries like Hong Kong, China and India developing their civilian on water activity for government lead programmes.

We are proud to have now worked with the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) and become a Strategic Partner. Together creating a DEFRA framework for the courses that meets all the requirements from DEFRA 1 Flood and Awareness to DEFRA 2 Flood and Responder and  DEFRA Instructor Levels.

All our own Water Safety Courses from beginner to more advanced levels will be monitored and quality assured by the RLSS and all our clients water safety certificates will have the added value of being an RLSS recognised certificate. Our centres will be inspected by the RLSS and our courses monitored to make sure they meet the requirements of the DEFRA Flood Rescue Concept of Operations and those of the RLSS.

Who are the RLSS?

 It is the Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK)'s purpose to enhance communities, so everyone can enjoy being in, on and around water, safely; because every life is worth saving. Our work is vital in every city, town, community and home.

RLSS UK has a proud history of helping to reducing the number of lives lost to drowning. Our mission is to be the leader in lifesaving and lifeguarding in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Sharing, our expertise and knowledge with as many people as possible, giving everyone the potential to save lives and enjoy water, safely.

Here, at the RLSS UK, we have an impressive heritage. We have built up years of experience and, we are honoured, to boast a strong force of loyal members and volunteers who work with us to promote water safety and educate in life saving skills.  Our roots were established back in 1891 as the Life Saving Society, and, in the early 1900s, with support from the Royal Family, we were granted permission to adopt the ‘Royal’ to our title – a badge that we are still immensely proud of today.

We have used our extensive, world-leading knowledge of water safety and training to develop a comprehensive range of vocational qualifications and a series of awards and education programmes which all have the ultimate aim of preventing drowning and stopping unnecessary loss of life. Our portfolio includes the National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ) - the premier lifeguard training programme.