Emergency First Aid at Work

People at work can suffer injuries or be taken ill. It doesn’t matter whether the injury or illness is caused by the work they do or not, it is important to give them immediate attention and call an ambulance in serious cases. You should make arrangements to ensure this happens. It can save lives and prevent minor injuries becoming major ones.

The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 require you to provide adequate and appropriate first-aid equipment, facilities and people so your employees can be given immediate help if they are injured or taken ill at work. What is ‘adequate and appropriate’ will depend on the circumstances in your workplace and you should assess what your first-aid needs are (see Q3). The minimum first-aid provision on any work site is: a suitably stocked first-aid kit (see Q4); an appointed person to take charge of first-aid arrangements (see Q5); information for employees about first-aid arrangements (see Q9). It is important to remember that accidents and illness can happen at any time. Provision for first aid needs to be available at all times people are at work.

Some small workplaces with low-level hazards may need only the minimum provision for first aid. But there are circumstances and factors that will mean you need greater provision. You, as an employer, are well placed to decide the provision you need.

A first-aider is someone who has done training appropriate to the level identified in the needs assessment. This may be: first aid at work (FAW); or emergency first aid at work (EFAW); or some other first-aid training appropriate to the particular circumstances of your workplace. The findings of your first-aid needs assessment (see Q3) will identify whether first aiders should be trained in FAW, EFAW, or some other appropriate level of training. EFAW training enables a first-aider to give emergency first aid to someone who is injured or becomes ill while at work. FAW training includes the same content as EFAW and also equips the first-aider to apply first aid to a range of specific injuries and illness. As a guide the HSE suggests the first-aid personnel to provide under different circumstances. Other appropriate levels of training may have specialist or additional content appropriate to your particular circumstances. To help keep their basic skills up to date, it is strongly recommended that your first aiders undertake annual refresher training.

There are no hard and fast rules on exact numbers. It will depend on the circumstances of your workplace. After working through the checklist in Table 1, refer to Table 2 which provides a general guide on how many appointed persons or firstaiders you might need. The numbers given in Table 2 are suggestions only. You should assess your first-aid needs in the light of your particular circumstances. Where there are special circumstances, such as shift work or sites with several buildings, there may need to be more first-aid personnel than set out in Table 2. You will also need to increase your provision to cover for absences.

Information on first aid at work is available on the first-aid web pages of HSE’s website: www.hse.gov.uk/firstaid