First aid at work: how many first aiders do you actually need?First aid at work: how many first aiders do you actually need?

“How many first aiders do we need?” is one of the most common health-and-safety questions employers ask, and one of the few the law deliberately refuses to answer with a single number. Instead it hands you a duty: work it out for your workplace, based on your risks. This guide explains the legal requirement, how to carry out the needs assessment, and the numbers the HSE suggests as a starting point.

• 1981 the First-Aid Regulations that set the duty
• 1 first aider per 50 in higher-hazard workplaces (guide)
• 1 first aider per 100 in low-hazard workplaces (guide)
• 0 fixed legal minimum: the needs assessment decides

What the law actually requires

The duty comes from the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981. Every employer must provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel so that employees who are injured or taken ill at work receive immediate attention. Note the two words doing the work: adequate and appropriate. The law does not set a ratio because a quiet office and a busy construction site plainly need different provision. What is “appropriate” is for you to determine, through a first-aid needs assessment.

The first-aid needs assessment

The needs assessment is the starting point for all first-aid provision, and it is where the real thinking happens. The HSE expects you to weigh:

• The nature of the work and its hazards: an office and a workshop with dangerous machinery are not the same risk.
• The size of the workforce: more people, more provision.
• Your accident and ill-health history: what has actually happened here, and what nearly did.
• The spread of the workforce: multiple sites, remote locations, and work patterns like shifts and lone working.
• Distance from emergency services, and the needs of any travelling, remote or lone workers.

The three types of first-aid personnel

The rules distinguish three roles, and the jargon matters when you write your provision down:

• Appointed person. Takes charge of first-aid arrangements: looks after the equipment and calls the emergency services. An appointed person needs no formal first-aid training.
• EFAW (Emergency First Aid at Work). A one-day trained first aider, able to give emergency first aid.
• FAW (First Aid at Work). A three-day trained first aider, able to deal with a wider range of injuries and illnesses.

The HSE’s suggested numbers

The HSE stresses these are a guide, not a legal ratio. Your needs assessment can require more. But as a starting point:

Low-hazard workplaces (offices, shops, libraries)

• Fewer than 25 employees: at least one appointed person.
• 25 to 50 employees: at least one first aider trained in EFAW.
• More than 50 employees: at least one FAW-trained first aider for every 100 employed (or part thereof).

Higher-hazard workplaces (construction, warehousing, engineering, manufacturing)

• Fewer than 5 employees: at least one appointed person.
• 5 to 50 employees: at least one first aider trained in EFAW or FAW, depending on the type of injuries that might occur.
• More than 50 employees: at least one FAW-trained first aider for every 50 employed (or part thereof).

Don’t forget cover, not just count

A single first aider is no cover at all once you account for holidays, sickness and shift patterns. Your assessment has to guarantee provision at all times people are at work, which usually means more trained people than the bare guide numbers suggest.

The field and lone-worker problem

The suggested numbers assume people are gathered on one site. A dispersed field workforce breaks that assumption: an engineer working alone, an hour from the nearest colleague, cannot share the site’s first aider. For lone and remote workers the needs assessment has to consider personal first-aid provision, training, and (critically) how an incident is raised and located when there is no one else there to raise it.

When first aid is given, record it

First-aid provision and incident recording are two halves of the same duty. Every time first aid is administered, the details should be recorded: what happened, to whom, when, and what was done. That record feeds your accident book obligations, informs the next needs assessment, and starts the clock on RIDDOR reporting if the injury turns out to be reportable.

This is where jobsafe earns its place alongside the first-aid kit: the moment first aid is given, the incident is captured in seconds on a phone (with location, time and photos), reaches a supervisor instantly, and is stored with a full audit trail. For a lone worker miles from base, that automatic location on a report can be the fastest way to get help to the right place. Watch it in the academy, or call us on 0333 8000 883.

Sources and further reading

• Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 (opens in new tab)
• HSE, First aid at work: your questions answered (INDG214) (opens in new tab)
• HSE, First aid needs assessment (opens in new tab)
• HSE, First aid at work (L74 Approved Code of Practice) (opens in new tab)