Aerial Rescue: What the Course and Assessment Involve (UK)

Aerial rescue is not a stand-alone course in the UK: it is part of your first climbing ticket. Unit 203 of the City & Guilds NPTC 0039-22 qualification, "Tree climbing and aerial rescue" (the old CS38), is one certificate covering both, assessed as practical activities with oral questioning. The assessment asks you to carry out two rescues — one from the crown of a tree and one from a pole — and to show the rescue plan you made before work started. Most climbers never carry out a real one; the reason for rehearsing it is that on every aerial job, someone has to be able to.

What the unit covers

The qualification covers risk assessment, emergency planning, legislation, industry good practice, tree condition and working-at-height assessments, equipment and systems, tree climbing, aerial rescue by climbing suitability, and rescue plan and implementation (0039-22 qualification handbook, v1.6, March 2025). The unit carries 40 guided learning hours.

The emergency-planning part is concrete: before work you record the site location, a grid reference, the nearest access point, a suitable helicopter landing area, and the location and phone number of the nearest accident and emergency hospital — so that whoever calls for help can say exactly where you are.

What the assessment involves

Two rescues are observed (handbook, LO2):

• A crown rescue. You access the tree, attain suitable anchor points, reach the casualty, make the area around them safe, attach them to your harness with a direct attachment (a chest strop if required), and bring them down in a controlled descent, guiding them past branches — reassuring the casualty throughout, and always on two independent load-bearing systems.
• A rescue from a "pole" — a standing stem — using climbing irons: install a false anchor point, secure the casualty to the rescue system, and bring them down.

The handbook also lists the rescue methods a plan can choose between: a two-person rescue (pole), a three-person rescue (belay), a MEWP, and SRT. And it names when rescue by climbing is the wrong answer: a dangerous tree structure, additional site hazards such as power-lines, or any case where the rescue would add risk to the casualty or the rescuer.

The rescue plan, made before work starts

The assessed plan is what you would actually do on the day: the emergency procedures completed as part of the site risk assessment; all rescue equipment available; a competent, designated rescuer named; a rescue line installed; and first aid equipment to hand, including a tourniquet and haemostatic gauze. Our first course kit guide lists the kit you carry for the climbing side.

Why crews rehearse it

HSE's guidance on aerial work is that "a minimum of 2 people must be present during all aerial work" (HSE: aerial work) — and the second person is, in the emergency, the rescuer. That is why the unit is not assessed alone, why the plan names a designated rescuer before the first cut, and why the skill is rehearsed even though a real rescue is a rare thing in a career: it is perishable, and the day it is needed is not the day to learn it. HSE suggests refresher training every two to three years for occasional users and every five years for full-time users; some crews and events rehearse whole teams at once for exactly this reason.

Where it sits in the tickets

0039-22 is the first climbing unit: after the ground-based 0039-20 and felling 0039-21, it is the one that gets you into the canopy, and 0039-23 (a chainsaw from rope and harness) builds on it. Our NPTC tickets guide sets out the order and the costs, and if you are wondering whether you need a "chainsaw licence" at all, that page is here.