You and First Aid Compliance
You are probably thinking what have you got to do with ‘You and First Aid compliance’, quite a lot as it happens.
Even if you employ less than 5 people or you are self-employed and work from home or work with others on a site with other self-employed people or even someone who drives for a living it applies to you too.
Under the ‘Health & Safety (First Aid) regulations 1981 and 1982 for Northern Ireland you as an employer or business owner are required by law to provide adequate and appropriate first aid equipment, first aid facilities, and adequately trained first aiders to ensure if a staff member became injured or was feeling unwell at work then someone would be able to assist the staff member.
I can hear you saying but I am self-employed and work from home and surely this doesn’t apply to me, sorry to tell you that it applies to you too, so ‘You and First Aid compliance’ applies.
So whats ‘adequate and appropriate’ I hear you ask?
This is largely depending on your circumstances and the workplace and whether you require trained first aiders or not, you will require at least an adequately stocked ‘first aid box’ at the very least with all the kit in date and in good condition, and if you employ quite a few staff members the chances are you may require more than one.
However, there is NO LEGAL duty on business owners or employers to provide first aid provision to members of the public whilst visiting your premises, but the majority of business owners or employers do, HSE strongly recommends that business owners or employers do, and we certainly encourage our customers to make provision for visitors to their premises.
So how do I work out what I need to meet the ‘Adequate and appropriate’ requirements?
Working out how to meet the ‘You and First Aid’ compliance is fairly straightforward and you will need to do a ‘First Aid needs assessment’, this is where some employers or business owners start to panic because they do not know where to start and by following a logical sequence it all falls into place and takes around 30 – 40 minutes to complete and you will need to revisit it over the year periodically.
We revisit ours 3 times a year to ensure we are still compliant. Here is our ‘First Aid Needs Assessment Guide’ to help you start.
Conclusion
You and First Aid Compliance will help you stay within the law regarding Health & Safety. So if you did get a visit from the HSE you would be able to show them the course you followed and also your findings, and actions you have taken in your quest to be compliant regarding first aid needs for your business.
Quite a few businesses get visits when there is a notifiable accident on site, or they have had a cluster of minor ones over a short period of time and they have been handing out significant fines to some for non-compliance.
In our book its always wise to keep up to date with all compliance issues and revisit your findings on a regular basis to ensure it still meets your needs and requirements.
