What’s the new Recommendations on Workplace First Aid Kits?

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20^th June 2022

It is common knowledge that all employers must provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personal to ensure their staff, visitors, contractors etc receive immediate attention if they are injured or taken ill at work. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) (First-Aid) Regulations 1981.

What confuses employers most and the questions we get asked all the time are:-

What type of first aid kit do I need?
How many do I need?
What needs to be in it?

In many cases there is no hard and fast answer…it very much depends on your working environment, numbers of staff in each area, and whether the environment is low, medium or high risk. It is down to an employer to perform a first aid risk assessment to help clarify the dangers and implement sufficient procedures.

However, what may help is that HSE recently referred to the enhanced British Standard First Aid kit in their latest First Aid at Work (guidance on regulations) publication. They direct employers to refer to the British Standard BS 8599 which gives you specific guidance on the contents of the workplace first aid kits.

So whilst this is ‘guidance’ it is always best practice to implement an HSE recommendation. As such making sure your kits are up to BS 8599 standards should give you peace of mind.

A bit of guidance on usage can be found below:

Small Kits

Low Risk – 1 kit for up to 25 employees
High Risk – 1 kit for up to 5 employees

Medium Kits

Low Risk – 1 kit for 25-100 employees
High Risk – 1 kit for 5-25 employees

Large Kits

Low Risk – 1 kit per 100 employees
High Risk – 1 kit per 25 employees

If you’re not sure you have enough, it’s always worth while just adding a few extra in around the building. Ideally in the case of an emergency each department should have one easily accessible.

Give us a shout if you need any help 😊