The three-year certificate, the yearly CPR refresh, and how the chain of currency actually works.
PUBLISHED 15 JUL 2026 · NEXA TRAINING, RTO 46538
A first aid certificate runs on two clocks at once — and the shorter one is the one people forget.
Clock one: three years. Your HLTAID011 Provide First Aid Statement of Attainment is considered current for three years. After that, you redo the full unit.
Clock two: twelve months. The Australian Resuscitation Council recommends the CPR component be refreshed every year. That’s the HLTAID009 CPR course — about three hours all up, done annually between full renewals. Most workplaces and regulators treat the ARC recommendation as the standard, and some industries require refreshers more often again.
Miss the CPR clock and your HLTAID011 doesn’t technically vanish — but a workplace first aider with lapsed CPR is exactly the finding an auditor loves to write up.
The four first aid units nest inside each other like Russian dolls.
HLTAID009 is CPR alone. HLTAID010 adds the life-threatening emergencies — choking, asthma, anaphylaxis, bleeding, shock — and includes 009. HLTAID011 is the full workplace first aid unit — fractures, burns, envenomation and the rest — and includes both 010 and 009. HLTAID012 sits on top: everything in 011 plus the child-specific content education and care settings need, with all three units underneath included.
Practical upshot: complete one course, and every unit inside it is issued on your Statement of Attainment. Do HLTAID011 and you hold three units. Do HLTAID012 and you hold four.
Most workplaces: HLTAID011 is the benchmark — when a job ad or WHS plan says “current first aid certificate”, this is the one it means.
Childcare, kindy, OSHC and schools: HLTAID012 — it meets ACECQA requirements for approved first aid, asthma and anaphylaxis training under the Education and Care Services National Law. Victorian school staff may also need the 22702VIC + 22578VIC asthma and anaphylaxis pair under Ministerial Order 706.
Security, fitness, policing, community services: often HLTAID010 as a minimum — but check your award or employer, because many still specify 011.
Renewal year: just the CPR refresh — HLTAID009, done annually, keeps the chain intact until the full three-year renewal.
One person, two clocks — manageable. Forty people, eighty clocks — that’s a spreadsheet nobody maintains. Nexa’s Compliance Hub tracks every certificate and its renewal date in one dashboard and flags currency before it lapses, for both nationally recognised units and awareness training. If you run a team, it’s the difference between an audit finding and an audit non-event.