First aid at work: the legal requirements
What the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 actually require, how to carry out a first aid needs assessment, and the arrangements employers are expected to have in place.
Every employer in Great Britain has a duty to make first aid provision for their employees. The duty is not satisfied by buying a first aid box and hoping. It requires a judgement about what your particular workplace needs, a record of how you reached it, and arrangements that actually work when someone is injured at three in the morning on a Sunday.
This page covers the legal framework and what is expected in practice. If you already know what you need and want to book, see first aid training courses.
What the Regulations require
The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 place three main duties. They apply to all workplaces, including those with fewer than five employees, and to the self-employed.
Provide first aid
Employers must provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel so that employees receive immediate attention if they are injured or taken ill at work. What counts as adequate is decided by the needs assessment.
Tell employees about it
Employers must inform employees of the first aid arrangements — who the first aiders are, where the equipment is kept, and how to raise the alarm. This is the duty most often overlooked, and the easiest for an inspector to test by asking someone.
Self-employed provision
Self-employed people must provide suitable first aid equipment for their own use while at work. A sole trader working alone on client premises is not covered by the client’s arrangements by default.
There is no fixed standard to comply with. The Regulations deliberately avoid prescribing numbers of first aiders or the contents of a first aid box, because a quarry and a call centre need different things. That flexibility is not a loophole — it puts the burden on you to decide, and to be able to explain the decision afterwards.
The first aid needs assessment
The needs assessment is how you determine what is adequate and appropriate. There is no prescribed template and no requirement to record it in writing for smaller employers — but recording it is the only way to demonstrate the judgement was made, and it takes minutes.
A reasonable assessment considers all of the following.
Hazards and risks
What could actually injure someone here. Machinery, chemicals, working at height, vehicles, electricity and hot work all point towards higher provision than an office.
Size of the workforce
Headcount matters, but it is a starting point rather than the answer. Ten people working with reactive chemicals need more than a hundred in an office.
Work patterns and cover
Shifts, nights, weekends, annual leave and sickness. Provision must exist whenever people are at work, not only during core hours.
Layout and distance
Multiple floors, separate buildings, remote corners of a site. A first aider four minutes away through locked doors is not the same as one in the next room.
Distance from emergency services
Remote or rural sites need to hold out longer before an ambulance arrives, which usually justifies higher-level training and better equipment.
Lone and travelling workers
Drivers, engineers and home workers are not covered by provision at head office. Personal kits and check-in arrangements usually feature in the answer.
Shared or multi-occupancy sites
Where several employers share premises, arrangements should be agreed between them rather than assumed. Put it in writing.
Vulnerability and mental health
Employees with known health conditions, and since 2018 — reinforced in the 2024 update to HSE guidance L74 — the mental health of your workforce.
Non-employees
The public, customers, contractors and pupils are outside the strict legal duty, but HSE strongly recommends including them.
Free toolWork out your provision in minutes
Our First Aid Needs Assessment Tool walks through the factors above, applies the HSE framework and produces a printable record you can keep on file as evidence that the assessment was carried out.
First aiders and appointed persons
These are different roles with different responsibilities, and confusing them is a common finding. An appointed person is not a cheaper first aider.
| Appointed person | First aider | |
|---|---|---|
| Training | None required by law | EFAW or FAW, valid three years |
| Role | Takes charge of arrangements, looks after equipment, calls the emergency services | Gives immediate treatment until professional help arrives |
| May treat casualties? | No — should not attempt first aid they are not trained to give | Yes, within the scope of their training |
| When appropriate | Small, low-hazard workplaces where the assessment finds a trained first aider is not needed | Wherever the assessment identifies the need |
An appointed person is always needed when first aiders are absent. Even a workplace with several trained first aiders needs someone nominated to take charge if all of them happen to be off at once.
Certificates last three years and cannot be renewed retrospectively. HSE also strongly recommends annual refresher training in between, typically a half day, because CPR technique in particular does not survive three years without practice.
Equipment, facilities and records
What must be in a first aid box?
There is no mandatory list. HSE deliberately does not prescribe contents, because the right kit depends on the hazards identified in your assessment. BS 8599-1 sets out a recognised British Standard specification for workplace first aid kits and is a sensible default, but buying a BS 8599 kit is not itself compliance — the assessment still has to conclude that the kit suits your risks. Higher-hazard sites often need additions such as burns dressings, eyewash or a tourniquet, and the 2024 update to L74 gives more guidance where life-threatening bleeding is a foreseeable risk.
No medication of any kind should be kept in a first aid box. First aiders do not administer drugs, including painkillers.
Do we need a first aid room?
Only where the needs assessment identifies one, which is typically larger workplaces and higher-hazard sites such as construction, chemicals and heavy manufacturing. Where provided, it should be easily accessible to stretchers, clearly signed, contain the necessary equipment, and be in the charge of a nominated person. Most offices and small workplaces will not need one.
What records should we keep?
Keep a record of every incident where first aid is given — date, time, place, who was involved, what happened, what treatment was given and by whom. It is good practice rather than a first aid duty in itself, but it feeds several things that are duties: spotting patterns before they become serious, supporting insurance and civil claims, and identifying anything reportable under RIDDOR.
Treat the records as personal data. An open accident book where the previous entry is visible to the next person writing in it is a data protection problem as well as an awkward conversation.
How do first aid records relate to RIDDOR?
They are separate. First aid records are your own; RIDDOR is a legal reporting duty to the enforcing authority for specified injuries, occupational diseases and dangerous occurrences. Not every first aid case is reportable, but a good first aid record is usually how a reportable one gets noticed — particularly injuries that turn out to keep someone off work for more than seven days.
How do we tell employees about the arrangements?
Regulation 4 requires it, and notices are the usual method — who the first aiders are, where to find them, where the equipment is kept. Cover it at induction as well, keep the names current when people leave, and make sure the information reaches shift workers and anyone based off-site. A notice listing a first aider who left two years ago is worse than no notice at all.
How often should the assessment be reviewed?
No interval is set in law. Review it when something changes — new processes or substances, a move or layout change, growth or reduction in headcount, a change in shift patterns, or after an incident that tested the arrangements. Many organisations also review annually as a matter of routine, which is a reasonable habit given how quietly workplaces drift.
Where employers commonly fall short
- No assessment at all — provision chosen by copying another business, or by whatever the last training booking happened to cover.
- Cover only during office hours — nights, weekends and holidays left uncovered because the assessment counted people rather than shifts.
- A single first aider — adequate on paper, absent the moment they take leave.
- Lapsed certificates — nobody diarised the three-year expiry, and requalification is no longer available.
- Out-of-date notices — naming first aiders who have left, which fails Regulation 4 and is trivially easy for an inspector to check.
- Kits nobody checks — contents used and never replaced, or past their expiry date.
- Off-site staff forgotten — drivers, engineers and home workers covered by arrangements that exist somewhere they are not.
Ready to arrange training?
Compare accredited EFAW, FAW, requalification, paediatric and mental health first aid courses from St John Ambulance, British Red Cross and St Andrew’s First Aid.
Related guidance
Needs assessment tool
Risk assessment guidance
Mental health & wellbeing
Safe Hands
You could be the one to save a life
This page is general guidance and does not replace the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981, HSE guidance L74, or your own first aid needs assessment.