Hi, I was wondering what the views were on expiry dates on stocks within first aid kits. Should we be stringent and throw away sealed undamaged items that are obviously still in good condition because of the date or is it acceptable to still keep these items in kits for a period after the date? If so how long? What do others do? Thanks Mark

I asked the same question to a relative who is a qualified nurse not so long ago the answer I got was that it really depends on the specific item in question. Where an item requires sterility such as a dressing which will be placed directly onto an open wound, then yes the expiry date should always be adhered to as the level of sterility cannot be guaranteed after the date stated. Rather than bin it, perhaps you could donate expired equipment to a local scouts group or the like for use if first aid training where open wounds are not present and therefore sterility isn't essential.

I am not an expert in infection control (where's Ian when you want him?) and I have no idea what the likely risk of using out of date bandages etc is. We remove out of date kit from service and either use them for training purposes or donate them for the same. Yes, people do try all sorts of tricks to make or inflate a claim (did anybody follow the programme on BBC recently - "claim and shame"?) But, I am left wondering how an IP might prove that the bandage was out of date (the date being on the packaging rather than the bandage) and furthermore prove that it was the bandage rather than the general risk of infection that led to any infection. This isn't something I would lose too much sleep over.

But I would expect a first aid kit should always have some dressings, in case of a serious cut (that may arise from something as simple as a broken milk-bottle or window - and we've had some of them). I would be very dubious of a first aid kit that contains no dressings at all, yet in my office we have never ever used a sterile dressing (certainly in the 20-odd years I've been monitoring our accidents and first-aid usage, as far as I know not in the 20 years the company existed before that either). (I'm assuming we're not calling sticky-plasters sterile dressings, though they are sterile and a wound dressing)