Injury, illness, and getting help
Evacuation and a kit without prescription doses
The coastguard and the telemedical doctor decide if someone should leave the boat. Your kit should match the trip, and it should not be a box of unnamed tablets.
After the doctor has advised, the coastguard may arrange evacuation by helicopter or lifeboat. You do not demand a helicopter as a first step, and you do not arrange a medical evacuation by calling a hospital that is outside this system. Follow the instructions the coastguard and the aircraft or lifeboat crew give you. Have the casualty's notes ready to hand over.
Source: MCA, MGN 623 (M+F) Amendment 1: Telemedical Advice Service (TMAS) for ships at sea
If CPR is under way, continue until the person shows signs of life, the rescue crew takes over, or you cannot physically continue. Do not stop only because a helicopter has been tasked.
Source: Resuscitation Council UK, First Aid Guidelines (2025)
A first aid kit should match the setting, the risks, and the people who will use it. Keep it where you can reach it, and check that it is complete. Where life-threatening bleeding from a limb is a realistic risk, include a tourniquet and dressings, and only use them as you have been taught in the bleeding lesson.
Source: Resuscitation Council UK, First Aid Guidelines (2025)
UK medical stores depend on the voyage. Category C is for harbour craft and boats that stay very close to shore, and also for lifeboats and liferafts. Liferaft kits are often sealed and replaced as a unit. The notice says to use the Ship Captain's Medical Guide when you are working out what is wrong, and to get telemedical advice. The statutory lists include medicines. This course does not teach a dose for any of them.
Source: MCA, MSN 1905 (M+F) Amendment 4, ships' medical stores
Get certified
A certificate used for commercial work or offshore racing comes from hands-on training with a recognised provider, for example an RYA First Aid course or STCW Elementary First Aid. This online course does not award that certificate, and it does not name or recommend a training centre.
Check your understanding
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1. Who arranges a medical evacuation by helicopter or lifeboat in the UK system?
2. The coastguard has a helicopter on the way and you are doing CPR. What should you do?
3. What does this course say a small-boat kit should be based on?
4. A Category C medical kit on a coded boat contains medicines. What does this course tell you to do with them?