First aid regulations

Contents
1. First aid regulations 2. First aid items

The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 (or The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1982) require an employer to provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel to deliver first aid to employees. What is adequate and appropriate will depend on the circumstances in the workplace and an employer should assess what their first aid needs are.

The minimum first aid provision on any work site is:

• A suitably stocked first-aid box
• An appointed person to take charge of first aid arrangements

It is also important to remember that accidents can happen at any time. First-aid provision needs to be available at all times when people are at work. There is no standard list of items to put in a first-aid box. It depends on what the needs are of that particular place of work. However, as a guide, and where there is no special risk in the workplace, a minimum stock of first aid items would be:

• A leaflet giving general guidance on first aid, e.g. the HSE leaflet "Basic advice on first aid at work"
• Twenty individually wrapped sterile adhesive dressings (assorted sizes)
• Two sterile eye pads
• Four individually wrapped triangular bandages (preferably sterile)
• Six safety pins
• Six medium sized (approximately 12 cm x 12 cm) individually wrapped sterile unmedicated wound dressings
• Two large (approximately 18 cm x 18 cm) sterile individually wrapped unmedicated wound dressings
• One pair of disposable gloves

You should not keep tablets or medicines in the first aid box. The above is a suggested contents list only, equivalent but different items will be considered acceptable.