The Health & Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 requires employers to make sure there are adequate and appropriate first aid equipment, facilities and number of qualified first aiders in the workplace. The HSE recommends that if you work in a company with 5-50 workers there should be at least one person trained in first aid. If the farm has fewer than 5 workers, does the LTP still require someone at the site to be first aid trained?

The Lion Training Passport scheme’s requirement is for every site to have at least one designated first aider – this designation is defined at the point of registration onto the scheme. One designated first aider per site is the minimum requirement defined by the scheme. A first aid risk assessment carried out on that site may well indicate the need to provide more than one first aider.

The designated first aider must have attended an Emergency First Aid at Work or First Aid at Work course within the last three years. Providers of these courses are not subject to approval by the scheme, however are required to deliver courses as per the ‘HSE’s information sheet GEIS3(rev1) Selecting a first aid training provider: A guide for employers (www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/geis3.htm)’. A course that does not meet these requirements in relation to content and trainer competence could not be recognised by the scheme as a suitable first aid course.

Where a farm is a single person operation, first aid provision may alternatively be provided by another nominated person, not employed by the operation, but who is on-site at all times. First aid training of this person should be at the above standard.