First Aid and First Aid for Mental Heath Needs Assessment

First aid provision must be ‘adequate and appropriate in the circumstances’. This means that you must provide sufficient first aid equipment (first aid kit), facilities and personnel at all times.

HSE website

https://www.hse.gov.uk/firstaid/needs-assessment.htm

On your behalf, We can do a First Aid Needs Assessment to decide what provisions you need.

The assessment should consider the circumstances of your workplace, workforce and the hazards and risks there may be. The findings will help decide what First Aid arrangements to put in place.

The assessment of your First Aid needs should consider:

1. The nature of the work you do.
2. Workplace hazards and risks (including specific hazards requiring special arrangements).
3. The nature and size of your workforce.
4. The work patterns of your staff.
5. Holiday and other absences of those who will be first aiders and appointed persons
6. Your business’ or organisation’s history of accidents or incidents

You may also need to consider:

1. The needs of travelling, remote and lone workers
2. The distribution of your workforce
3. The remoteness of any of your sites from emergency medical services
4. Whether your employees work on shared or multi-occupancy sites
5. First aid provision for non-employees (for example members of the public)

You will receive a full report of the findings of your needs assessment. It will give you the full information for consideration on your first aid provisions.

First Aid for Mental Health Needs

Following on from the First Aid Needs Assessment; you might decide that it will be beneficial to have personnel trained to identify and understand symptoms and able to support someone who might be experiencing a mental health issue.

We can identify if you should consider ways to manage mental ill health in your workplace which are appropriate for your business, such as providing information or training for managers and employees, employing occupational health professionals, appointing mental health trained first aiders and implementing employee support programmes.

If you have determined that first aiders trained in either Emergency First Aid at Work (EFAW) or First Aid at Work (FAW) are appropriate for your workplace, you might decide that their training and skills already enable them to provide initial support and reassurance to an employee experiencing an acute mental health episode. You should be satisfied that they know how to access professional help if necessary and can act promptly, safely and effectively until that help is available.