Posted By Richard Whitehead At a recent health & safety committee meeting, the point was raised that personnel would not volunteer to be first aiders for fear of of being sued if something went wrong following their first aid treatment being administered. I am looking for guidance on this issue. Is extra insurance required?

Posted By Ron Impey Hi Richard, This topic was covered in a previous discusion on this forum: http://www.iosh.co.uk/in...um=1&thread=8310&page=41 Regards, Ron

Posted By Roj Smith The issue of First Aiders being sued by the very people that they have come to help is an "urban myth". i.e. So far as I am aware it has never even been attempted in any UK court, let alone succeeded. That said, insurance liability cover is available, just in case.

Posted By David Lennon A challenge. Can anybody actually quote the case of anyone ever having been sued after getting it wrong while attempting to administer first aid!

Posted By Mike Craven This was the response given by our insurers (Zurich Municipal) when our Insurance Officer asked similar questions some time ago. "First Aid provision by the council, via trained staff, is primarily for the benefit of its employees in order to fulfil reasonable Health & Safety requirements, and our core policy wording reflects this. Any treatment of members of the public is incidental to the above and is not a primary responsibility of the council. A First Aider will inevitably become involved in situations that are not connected with their employment by the council and should therefore be urged to ensure they have their own personal liability cover in place (e.g. Household Policy or via the FA training body). To be practical we accept that councils will wish First Aiders to be available during the working day should an incident occur on or about the council's premises, or associated with its facilities (e.g. a park keeper in a council park). We therefore consider that our Public Liability cover will apply in respect of actions by qualified First Aiders where arising from the BUSINESS. This does not, of course, mean quite the same thing as saying that the BUSINESS of the Council includes the provision of FA facilities to the public. The cover we provide is also, of course, contingent to any personal cover the First Aider may (or should) have in place. We cannot stress enough the importance of the personal cover to achieve "24 hour" protection for the individuals. Our suggestion is that local authorities incorporate a statement on FA within their Health and Safety Policy, that sets down these principles. In addition each appointed qualified First Aider should have something specific in their job description permitting them to attend to members of the public in emergencies. It is probable that a phrase such as "within council facilities or in the vicinity of council premises" is used to attempt to define the parameters and we will go along with this. Clearly no one is going to paint a white line at a predetermined distance from a council building so we would expect the principle of "reasonableness" and common sense to apply should a claim occur. However, the point about personal cover is reinforced here in as much as a First Aider will not need to think twice about delineation issues if they have their own cover in place." Mike

Posted By J Knight Can't cite chapter & verse on any case law about 1st Aiders being sued, but the trainers on the last course I attended (St John Ambulance in Barnsley) were utterly certain that this can happen and knew themselves of cases where it had. I accept fully the vicarious liability argument, and presumably suits for compensation would arise only on 'free-lance' first aiders, i.e those not acting in the course of their employment. Number of law suits actually fell last year by the way, 'compensation culture' is a product of the fear culture promoted by some newspapers, John

Posted By J Knight Hi Heather, I never said that people don't make claims; I know they do and I spend at least part of my time contesting and forestalling them. I did say that the compensation culture is largely a myth promoted by some journalists and newspapers for largely political ends. I stand by that belief; personal experience of claims is no guide to the overall movement in litigation, a fall in claims must indicate something, as must the collapse of the biggest claims farmers. We've all seen the ads, we all know what people think they are able to claim for; however objective counts do indicate that the level of EL claims is falling, as indeed did the better regulations taskforce report earlier this year. Part of the myth is that you can claim compensation for almost anything; hence it's the myth that drives fishing letters of the sort you refer to. I'd like to see more discussion about why the 'myth of the claims culture' (better regulations taskforce's term, not mine) persists, and where it ties in to the anti-regulation agenda pervading our media, John