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Posted By Jo Scott Smith
Views and guidance on the following would be appreciated.
The organisation I work for has specific groups of non employees that it feels it has a duty of care to and is considering whether it should provide first aid to these non-employees. The groups are training delegates (people paying to attend training provided by us) and clients who we support/advise/give advocacy to and may visit in their homes.
The training we offer is office based and low risk with up to 60 delegates on site at a time. We currently provide one first aider (4 day training) for the 16 staff and training delegates but the manager of the section has requested that a wider selection of staff are given appointed person (1 day training)as back up. Whilst I can see an arguement for having absence cover this seems a bit OTT.
The other situation concerns staff visiting clients in their own homes. Some of the clients are elderly or have health probems. The manager of the project has asked whether staff could/should be given appointed persons training so that they deal appropriately with an injury to a client. Whilst it is natural to want to assist a client and for our staff not to make a situation worse by taking in appropriate action, I am concerned that this opens us up to a whole area of unwanted liability.
Can anyone help with where our duty of care starts and finishes in these kinds of situations?
There is also concern that a first aider administering first aid could be open to an accusation of assault.
Can you be negligent by not providing adequate first aid cover to customers/clients?
If anyone works is a similar environment I would be interested in knowing where you have judged the balance to be and what guidance/instructions you give to your staff.
Thank you in anticipation.
JO
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Nigel Singleton BSc
Hi
The duty of care is for the employer to provide 1st aid cover to all his employees at all times whilst at work, this means that technically a lone worker should be at least an appointed person with sufficient basic knowledge to administer 1st aid to themselves. In appendix 1 section 10 of the Regulations it states that lone workers or travelling staff should be considered for training and the carrying of a simple 1st aid kit.
The sticking point comes when you go back to Regulation 3 which states adequate and appropriate. The correct way to assess is to conduct an assessment of needs, is the person likely to sustain an injury, if so how bad, and how often. The training given should then be based on the findings of this assessment.
The only way round this is to consider personal communication devices to allow an employee to summon 1st aid from work?
Given the cheap cost of running an appointed persons course (about £20 per head), I would consider it worthwhile training all lone workers, then no matter what happens the employer would be covered in your low risk environment.
With regard to non employees the 1st aid Regulations do not oblige employers to provide cover for the public. The Health & safety at Work Act does not allow for Regulations to be made covering the public.
If you do decide to provide for the public, you must make sure that your employer's liability specifically includes giving 1st aid to members of the public. The other way to cover your staff is through public liability, however again it is worth checking the small print.
If you need any further help please contact me.
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Ken Taylor
Whilst duties under the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regs do not extend beyond employees, some employers will consider themselves to have written or implied contractural duties to provide first-aid to persons other than employees (eg in schools and care establishments). Unless your organisation falls within such categories, you may think it more prudent to provide a good level of cover and facilities for your employees, not mention providing first-aid to non-employees and anticipate that common humanity will prevail in the event of an injury to a non-employee.
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