Employers must make sure employees get immediate help if they are taken ill or are injured at work.

The law applies to every workplace and to the self-employed.

You must have:

  • A suitably stocked first aid kit.
  • An appointed person or people to take charge of first aid arrangements.
  • Information for all employees telling them about first aid arrangements.

What ‘adequate and appropriate’ first aid arrangements are depend on the work you do and where you do it. You’re best placed to understand the nature of your work, so you should assess what your first aid needs are.

You must consider:

  • The type of work you do.
  • Hazards and the likely risk of them causing harm.
  • The size of your workforce.
  • Work patterns of your staff.
  • Holiday and other absences of those who will be first aiders and appointed persons.
  • The history of accidents in your business.

You should have an “appointed person” who is in charge of your first aid arrangements. This includes looking after the equipment and the facilities and calling emergency services.

You can have more than one appointed person and they don’t need to have any formal training.

An appointed person must always be available whenever people are at work.

The contents of your first aid kit should be based on your first aid needs assessment. See: Basic advice on first aid at work

If you are buying a kit, look for British Standard (BS) 8599. By law, your kit doesn’t have to meet this standard, but you should check it contains what you’ve identified in your needs assessment.

You might decide that you need someone trained in first aid, sometimes known as a first aider. There are no hard and fast rules on how many trained first aiders you should have. It depends on the nature of your work and its location.

See: First aid in work – What do you need to do? – Overview – HSE