No one wants to have an accident in the workplace. When it inevitably happens though, good first aid can reduce your liability. What’s involved in being compliant with Australian first aid standards? You’ll need to get a good grasp on your respective states First Aid Code of Practice Document. In this article, we’ll take a look at a few first aid related questions and give some general advice from the code of practice on how to handle it.
Accessibility of First Aid Kits.
Getting a first aid kit is a great thing to do, but to stay compliant you’ll have to give thought to accessing it. When deciding where to locate kits, what do you need to keep in mind? Is it adequately signed? Can everyone easily see it? Its visibility will make it easier to find in the stress of a critical situation. More is required to make kits accessible. When choosing a place for a kit, have you considered the likeliness of where someone may get injured? If you were for instance, working at a joinery, more people are likely to get injured in the workshop than in the office. So where should you locate the kit? In the workshop? You should also consider if more first aid kits are required. If you have more than one building, floor or shed why not have a kit in each one. If there are multiple workplace vehicles can you have a kit in each vehicle. These are the sort of questions the code of practice encourages you to think about so that you can make an informed decision on kit availability and placement.
Kit Suitability
Workplaces differ, and so do the hazards and risks they face. When choosing first aid kits for your workplace you need to take your unique circumstances into account. Many first aid suppliers have industry specific first aid kit options that can help you. Some have kits designed for food preparation areas, sports fields, chemical handling and much more. If you are in an isolated area, you may need more equipment than someone who has quick access to emergency services.
First Aider Availability
The code of practice document sets out advice regarding availability of first aiders. As follows, it recommends a minimum following number of qualified work aiders: Low Risk Workplaces- 1 in 50 High Risk Workplaces- 1 in 25 High Risk Remote Workplaces- 1 in 10.
If you are trying to figure out how many first aiders you need, the above is a great help. There is more to think about though. In some businesses, there are large amounts of foot traffic. A restaurant for example, might only have 25 staff, but more than 300 guests during a night. In such cases is it good for more first aiders to be on. A farm may only have 15 staff, but during harvest it could have 100. Members of the public, changing staff rotations and rosters are all things to keep in mind when determining the amount of staff you’ll train. One Toowoomba first aid training provider Andrew Falstow says “Regional and Rural Queensland areas like Toowoomba, just don’t have the emergency services city areas have. We have found that local businesses are choosing to request more staff get training.”
In Summary
Having available and suitable first aid kits as well as qualified staff is important to meet regulations. When a workplace incident does happen, you will feel more secure knowing that your first aid was in check.
Comments are closed.