Is your Workplace Low-Risk or High-Risk?
The First-Aid code of practice requires you to consider whether we are a low-risk workplace or a high-risk workplace. A high-risk workplace is where the workers are exposed to risks, where there is a risk of serious illness or injury to them.
An office is going to be completely different to a construction site, a rural workplace, or a manufacturing workplace. These workplaces will all have different hazard profiles and therefore different first aid requirements, and it’s important that we consider this when we’re going through and considering what we need for first aid.
Think about size, location and the nature of work that you do need to be taken into account. You might be an office workplace that happens to be right beside a major hospital. Your workplace requirements for first aid are going to be completely different than a really remote workplace where the risks are much higher.
First Aid Risk Assessment:
Once you’ve worked out the hazard profile of the workplace that you work in, you then need to go ahead and do a First-Aid risk assessment for your workplace.
It doesn’t really matter how you do it, but just need to come up with some requirements for things, such as:
- How many first aid kits do you need and where will they be located?
- How many first aid personnel do you need, who are they, and what type of training have they received?
- Do you need a First Aid room?
- What type of First Aid Information Do you need?
- Do you need specific procedures for infection control?
These are things that come out of your first aid risk assessment and the code of practice for first aid gives some good guidance on this. When I refer to the code of practice, I’m referring about the Australian First Aid Code of Practice.
First Aid Kits
Everyone obviously needs at least one First-Aid kit in their workplace and it needs to be appropriate for the type of work that you do.
A simple First-Aid kit is going to have to cater tho things like cuts, scratches, bruises and burns. Some work places might also need additional equipment for things like eye injuries or chemical injuries.
You need to consider your hazard profile and make sure your first aid kit is appropriate for that. Again, the Australian First Aid code of practice gives us some good guidance as what is required in a first aid kit and you can see on screen just an example or what a comprehensive first aid kit might look like or might include.
Location of First Aid Kit:
You should also consider where you have your first aid kit. If you’re a small workplace, one first aid kit should be adequate, if you’re a much larger, much more geographically spread out workplace, you’re going to need a number of first aid kits, but at the end of the day it just needs to be accessible. Workers need to be able to easily get to that first aid kit when they need it.
If you have mobile workers who drive around a lot, you’re going to need first aid kits in cars as well.
First-Aid Personnel
You need to have an appropriate number of people who are trained to administer first aid.
You also need to consider is what type of first aid course is appropriate. Again, the code of practice gives some guidance on this but it might be something like the basic administer first aid through to a more occupational first aid course, depending on where and what type of hazards you have. As far as the number of first aider requirements, you can make these decisions yourself, but the code of practice will give some guidance.
For a low-risk workplace the guidance is that we would have 1 first aider for every 50 workers, for a high-risk workplace at least 1 for every 25.
I would recommend for some work places you might even have more than that, and I’ve been to plenty of places where they just say “we’re going to train everyone in first aid, just so we make sure we’ve got enough workers to cover that situation.”
First Aid Information
First aid information should include the location of the first aid kits – It’s no good having a first aid kit if it’s hidden under a counter without any signage at all. Workers must be aware of the location and you should have appropriate signage to indicate that as well. The green and white sign should be clearly visible wherever the first aid kit is located.
We need to make sure we give information as far as who are the first aiders. I suggest this should be covered at induction, so any worker how comes on site or starts working for your workplace, knows who the first aid person to contact is and how to contact them.
We also need to have basic first aid procedures as far as how to record first aid injuries, how we go about that, what other types of incident reporting are required whenever someone has a first aid injury.
Finally, we need to make sure that we consider whether we need to have much more detailed infection control procedures. So, if you work in a workplace where the risk of biological infection is a real risk, such as a hospital or a vet clinic, then you need to have appropriate procedures to include things like hand washing and standard infection control procedures.
Takeaways:
- There are no strict rules on this as you can see alright, main requirements are you do a comprehensive assessment of your first aid requirements.
- If you’re a low-risk workplace, it’s going to be relatively simple, you’re going to need a basic first aid kit and at least one trained first aid personnel. If you’re a higher risk workplace you’re need to consider more kits, more comprehensive first aid kits which have got additional things for things like chemical burns for example., and you’re going to make sure you have more and better trained personnel.
- The final thing you need to consider is do you have the right procedures in place? Do you have the appropriate procedures for example for infection control?