First Aid Kit - Workplace First Aid Kit

Workplace First Aid Kit

In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires all job sites and workplaces to make available first aid equipment for use by injured employees . While providing regulations for some industries such as logging in general the regulation lack specifics on the contents of the first aid kit. This is understandable, as the regulation covers every means of employment, and different jobs have different types of injuries and different first-aid requirements. However, in a non-mandatory section, the OSHA regulations do refer to ANSI/ISEA Specification Z308.1 as the basis for the suggested minimum contents of a first aid kit. Another source for modern first aid kit information is United States Forest Service Specification 6170-6, which specifies the contents of several different-sized kits, intended to serve groups of differing size.

In general, the type of first aid facilities required in a workplace are determined by many factors, such as:

• the laws and regulation of the state or territory in which it is located;
• the type of industry concerned; for example, industries such as mining may have specific industry regulations detailing specialised instructions;
• the type of hazards present in the workplace;
• the number of employees in the workplace;
• the number of different locations that the workplace is spread over;
• the proximity to local services (doctors, hospital, ambulance).