Do I have enough First Aiders in my organisation?

The law states you have to have suitable and sufficient first aid provision (i.e. facilities, first aid kits and trained first aiders) but you are the best qualified person to decide what that is. However, if there is an accident or someone is taken ill and they suffer harm because of a lack of first aid provision on your part, you will be left in a difficult position.
To avoid this, you need to carry out a first aid needs assessment. Essentially this is just looking at your organisation and deciding a sensible level of cover. The HSE recommends thinking about the following factors.

• The nature of the work you do
• Workplace hazards and risks (including specific hazards requiring special arrangements)
• The nature and size of your workforce
• The work patterns of your staff
• Holiday and other absences of those who will be first-aiders and appointed persons
• Your organisation’s history of accidents
• The needs of travelling, remote and lone workers
• The distribution of your workforce
• The remoteness of any of your sites from emergency medical services
• Whether your employees work on shared or multi-occupancy sites
• First-aid provision for non-employees (eg members of the public).

For a small low hazard environment (like a small office) a first aid kit and somebody in charge of making first aid arrangements/calling for an ambulance is probably the bare minimum. Most work environments though would require further first aid training and provision.
To help you further the HSE have produced a really useful guidance document of case studies looking at different types of organisation and suggesting an appropriate amount of training and equipment. If you would like a free copy of this document click here or if you have any questions on your level of first aid cover you can email me at [email protected]