Do you need a First Aider in the Workplace?

How Many First Aiders Do You Need at Work?

There is no number in the legislation. There is no employee threshold that switches the obligation on, and no ratio you can look up and apply.

What the law does say is that every employer must provide adequate and appropriate first aid equipment, facilities and personnel.

That comes from the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981, and it applies from your first employee onwards.

The word doing the work is "adequate". You establish what that means through a first aid needs assessment.


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Is first aid at work a legal requirement?

Yes. The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 require every employer to provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel, so that employees receive immediate attention if they are injured or taken ill at work.

There is no size threshold. The Regulations apply to all workplaces, including those with fewer than five employees, and they apply to the self employed in respect of their own provision.

This is enforceable. HSE prosecutes where there is significant risk, disregard for established standards, or persistent poor compliance. What varies is not whether you must provide first aid, but what adequate provision looks like in your workplace.

HSE is clear that this covers whether trained first aiders are needed, what goes in the first aid box, and whether a first aid room is required. You establish all three through a first aid needs assessment, which is itself a legal requirement.
 

What the needs assessment looks at

HSE sets out the factors. Working through them honestly takes about an hour and gives you a defensible position.
 

• The nature of the work and its hazards.
• A print works, and an accountancy practice face different injuries.
• Machinery, chemicals, vehicles, working at height and hot surfaces all raise the level of provision needed.
• How many people you employ. More people means more incidents, and it also means more chance that your one trained first aider is the person who is hurt.
• Your accident and ill health record. What has actually happened, not what you imagine might.
• Accident book entries are the most honest input you have.
• How your workforce is distributed. Several floors, multiple buildings or a large site all mean cover in one place is not cover everywhere. 
• Shift patterns and absence. Provision has to hold at 6am on a Sunday and during the summer holidays.
• Most organisations need more first aiders than the headcount alone suggests, purely to cover leave and sickness.
• Distance from emergency services. A rural site waiting fifteen minutes for an ambulance needs stronger provision than a town centre office.
• Non employees.
• You have no legal duty to provide first aid to members of the public, but HSE recommends you include them.
• If you run a shop, a nursery or a leisure facility, most sensible assessments do.
   

The rough starting points

HSE publishes suggested numbers as a guide. They are a starting point for the assessment rather than a substitute for it.

In a low hazard workplace, fewer than 25 employees would typically indicate at least one appointed person.

Between 25 and 50 suggests at least one first aider trained in Emergency First Aid at Work.

Above 50, at least one first aider trained in First Aid at Work per 100 employees.

Higher hazard workplaces move up the scale considerably, and the thresholds fall. Treat these as orientation.

If your accident record or your site layout points somewhere different, follow the evidence rather than the table.
 

Which qualification?

Emergency First Aid at Work, one day. Suits lower-risk settings such as offices, retail and small teams. Valid three years.

First Aid at Work, three days. For higher risk environments and larger organisations. Covers a broader range of conditions and injuries. Valid three years.

Most organisations find they need a mix.

A three day qualified first aider as the lead, with EFAW trained staff giving cover across shifts and sites, is a common and sensible pattern.

 

Reviewing it

An assessment done once and filed is worth very little.

Revisit it when you change premises, take on new processes or equipment, significantly change headcount, or record an accident that your provision did not handle well.

That last one is the most useful trigger and the most often missed.
 

Working it out

If you are trying to size your provision and are not certain where you land, call us before you book anything.

We will not put you on the three-day course if one day covers you, and we would rather have the conversation first than sell you the wrong thing.

Refrences

1. HSE: Legislation 1981