What first aid do you need on a construction site?
The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 require employers to provide adequate and appropriate first-aid equipment, facilities and people for their employees. HSE's minimum on any work site is a suitably stocked kit, an appointed person and information for employees, with trained first-aiders where your needs assessment says so.
What the regulations require
Employers must provide first-aid equipment, facilities and suitable people that are adequate and appropriate in the circumstances for their employees, and must tell their employees about the arrangements. Self-employed people must provide first-aid equipment for themselves.
The regulations do not require first aid for non-employees, such as the public. HSE strongly recommends including them in your assessment and making provision for them.
The first-aid needs assessment
Employers are required to carry out an assessment of first-aid needs. HSE says to consider the type of work, the hazards and risks, the size of the workforce, work patterns, absences of first-aiders and appointed persons (including holidays), and the accident history. It may also matter how far you are from emergency medical services and whether you work on a shared or multi-occupancy site.
You do not have to write the findings down, but HSE says doing so shows how you decided. For higher hazards HSE says to consider first-aiders, extra training and equipment, and a first-aid room, which its guidance says will usually be needed on large construction sites.
Appointed person or first-aider
An appointed person takes charge of the first-aid arrangements: looking after the equipment and facilities and calling the emergency services. They can cover a first-aider's unexpected absence (annual leave does not count) and need no first-aid training. Where the assessment shows a first-aider is not needed, an appointed person is the minimum, and someone must be available whenever people are at work.
A first-aider has done first-aid training at the level your assessment identifies, such as first aid at work (FAW) or emergency first aid at work (EFAW). You must check that your training provider is competent. HSE strongly recommends annual refresher training but it is not mandatory.
HSE says there are no hard and fast rules on numbers. As an example only, HSE's leaflet suggests the following for higher-hazard work, a group that includes construction: fewer than 5 employees, at least one appointed person; 5 to 50, at least one first-aider trained in EFAW or FAW, depending on the injuries that might occur; more than 50, at least one FAW first-aider for every 50 employed or part of 50. HSE calls these suggestions only, and says sites with several buildings or shift work may need more.
What goes in the first-aid kit
HSE says there is no mandatory list of items. The contents depend on your needs assessment, and BS 8599-1 kits are not a legal requirement. HSE's suggested minimum for low-hazard work is only an example: a general first-aid leaflet, 20 assorted sterile plasters, two sterile eye pads, four triangular bandages, six safety pins, two large and six medium sterile dressings, and at least three pairs of disposable gloves. Higher hazards mean you should consider extra equipment.
HSE advises at least one kit for each workplace, with more on larger sites. Kits should be easy to get to, checked often and restocked after use, and HSE recommends keeping tablets and medicines out of them.
Telling workers
A notice naming the appointed person or first-aiders and showing where the kit is will usually be enough. HSE suggests a notice in the site hut. You need special arrangements for anyone with reading or language difficulties, and the first-aid arrangements are a topic HSE lists for the site induction.
Several contractors on one site
Each employer is responsible for first aid for its own employees, and self-employed people for themselves. HSE says that on a shared or multi-occupied site, employers can arrange for one employer to provide first-aid cover for all the workers. They should swap information on the hazards and risks so the shared cover is adequate, all employers should agree it, and workers should be told. HSE strongly recommends a written agreement between the employers. Self-employed people can join the arrangement too.