First Aid on Site & How to Make Your Workers Aware
When the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations came into force in 1981 it required and still does, employers to provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel to ensure their employees receive immediate attention if they are injured or taken ill at work. These Regulations apply to all workplaces. The 3 main stipulations that they enforced and still have to adhere to are:
- First Aid Box
- Appointed First Aider / Aiders
- Display a Health & Safety / First Aid Board.
- The First Aid Box must have enough equipment to cope with the number of workers on site. There is no point having 2 plasters and 1 glove if you have 200 plus workers on site! Regardless of site size the bare minimum an on-site first aid kit should have is (and of course enough for your workforce): Moist wipes, disposable gloves (more than 1!), medium and large sterile dressings, sterile eye pads, saline solution, eye baths, triangular bandages and safety pins.
- There must be an appointed person or persons that can take charge of first-aid arrangements. They must be on site at all times so a well organised site will have a pool of these trained workers to cover each other when they all aren’t there together and to ensure the site is adequately staffed with first aiders. There also needs to be visible information telling all workers the name / names of the appointed person / persons and where / how to find them. A First Aid Board in the site hut is a good way of doing this and the most central place to install one for all to see which brings me nicely onto point 3.
- By installing a dedicated First Aid / Health & Safety information board you can provide your site workforce and site visitors with a one-stop reference point for everything they need to know about operating safely within their workplace and while on site. As an idea the board should display & advise the following:
First aid kit
Eye wash kit
Health & Safety Law Poster
Evacuator site alarm
Printed first aid
Fire action notice
Emergency services information
Site contacts
Any other relevant mandatory safety messages and activity briefing area details
By displaying a board / boards that have all of the above information this then ensures all employees and visitors are fully aware of first aid and fire safety site rules and procedures while on site and should the an accident happen (which sadly it does on the rare occasion) those involved know exactly what to do and where to go for assistance.