There is no legal reason to pay.

The topic of who pays and who doesn't and how much and the pros and cos of paying and not paying and how else to incentivise people to become first aiders has been covered extensively in the forum in the past, so a search should turn up lots of stuff on this.

The search facility here isn't the easiest to use!

Feel free to take away the money.. just don't complain when at renewal time people have lost interest and you don't have enough volunteers to satisfy the regulations

http://forum.iosh.co.uk/posts/t124512-First-Aider---Responsibility-Payment

http://forum.iosh.co.uk/posts/t83033-payment-for-First-Aiders-and-Fire-Wardens

Originally Posted by: webley01

Other than the moral reasons for the payments to be made are there any legal reasons that they should be paid?

We don't pay first aiders or fire marshals anything extra.

What moral reasons are there for paying?

We have a ridiculous policy where:

All first aiders get an additional day's leave (not cash) across the firm

Fire Wardens get nothing - except in one particular building where local managers again agreed an additional day off per annum

I would avoid pay (or extra holiday) unless a) you are desparate for volunteers and b), you link the reward to performance. For example, attendance at a routine annual refresher fire safety session. No attendance in say 18 months, you lose the entitlement 

We paid a small retainer to First Aiders but I've just found out that several hadn't attended any incidents in the last 2 years so I'm campaigning to have it removed. 

Originally Posted by: lorna

We paid a small retainer to First Aiders but I've just found out that several hadn't attended any incidents in the last 2 years so I'm campaigning to have it removed. 

Did your analysis also look at the location of these non-attendees in relation to recorded incidents? Bit silly to run someone all the way across site when there is a First-Aider in the next office / on the adjacent work bench.

Promotions or new duties also impact the original devised cover plan resulting in perceived "non-partcipants" - I regularly struggled to ensure we had at least two trained First Aiders per shift as employees switched to vacancies on other shifts.

Personally I have always seen First Aiders like insurance - something you pay for but hope never to use.

Is it the case that you are fortunate to have a low locallised incident rate?

Originally Posted by: ShaunBaker91

Alot of companies make the payment as an incentive for employees to become interested and its a way of continued development if someone is seen not to be conducting there duties then the pay is taken away from them, this way, in the event of an incident, roles and responsibilities are more likely to be conducted in the correct manner as employees want to be seen to be conducting their duties to maintain their pay.

You administer First Aid to a casualty so in the utopian workplace where zero harm actually happens how do you measure duty being conducted?

Originally Posted by: ShaunBaker91

Alot of companies make the payment as an incentive for employees to become interested and its a way of continued development if someone is seen not to be conducting there duties then the pay is taken away from them, this way, in the event of an incident, roles and responsibilities are more likely to be conducted in the correct manner as employees want to be seen to be conducting their duties to maintain their pay.

The issue with not paying the fund for first-aid and fire marshals is that you may find it hard to recruit people to go on the course as its extra responsibilities for the same pay as others without the responsibility.

I didn't understand any of this.  Are you saying that if a first aider is not paid, then they won't carry out first aid to the required standard?  Or that if no-one has an accident, or needs a plaster, then payment is withheld?

I have just re-newed my FAW cert, 3 days out of the office and lunch paid for, what more do people need as an incentive than to receive training that can be used at home in addition to the work place.......

On the fip side my wife works for a local authority and when asking for volunteers to undertake 1st aid training, the good lady was the only person to offer, the rest it seems feel that it is just another thing their employer wants out of them.

Regards

PaulR 

Sorry Lorna - read your campaign as to strip out the payment not the individual

At the end of the day such payment schemes require the First Aider to be certified BUT it is not an automatic right that an employer arranges and pays for refresher training of any individual

Using a merit system you can choose to let certificates lapse so that training expense can be directed appropriately, all too often it is an automatic action to just renew soon to expire certificates without an evaluation discussion with the individual e.g. identifying they are due to retire 6 months after renewal.

Originally Posted by: paul reynolds

I have just re-newed my FAW cert, 3 days out of the office and lunch paid for, what more do people need as an incentive than to receive training that can be used at home in addition to the work place.......

On the fip side my wife works for a local authority and when asking for volunteers to undertake 1st aid training, the good lady was the only person to offer, the rest it seems feel that it is just another thing their employer wants out of them.

It does seem to vary by workplace.  I actually have people asking to be first aider and I decline them because we already have more than we need - an office of 130 people, all just sat at desks, and I have six first aiders (most FAW, though one is only EFAW).  We make no payment to people for being a first aider, the general view (among the first aiders) is that they welcome having a useful life-skill paid  for by the company.

It would be intersting to know what makes one company have more volunteers than they need, and another company have to beg / bribe to get the numbers they need.

Originally Posted by: nic168

achrn, I have just moved into an office based post- 150 staff- no problems with volunteers to do First aid or AED, but Fire Wardens is proving to be a can of worms.

The reluctant Fire wardens tell me it is about responsibility, but surely that argument would apply to first aid provision as well?

What do they mean by ‘responsibility’?

Has someone been frightening them by saying that if they don’t do their job right they will be held accountable and sent to prison? Don’t laugh; I have heard comments like this from external trainers, often ex-fire fighters who seem to think that their job is to put the Fear of God into people.

The only responsibility that fire wardens have is:

• When the fire alarm goes off to get themselves out to the assembly point and tell everybody else to do the same
• To make sure that everybody stays at the assembly point until the fire alarm is over
• To confirm with fire service or Incident Control Officer that as far as they know the building is clear or that some people may have stayed behind for whatever reasons
• To tell people to go back into he building once the emergency has passed.

They cannot be held responsible for:

• The fire braking out
• Fighting the fire
• People deciding to stay put
• Not noticing someone deciding to nip back into the building to get their favourite coat

A lot of organisations, particularly the pure office set ups, do not have designated fire wardens. Instead everybody has fire warden training and if there is fire alarm the first person to the fire point puts on the hi-viz jacket and picks up the megaphone and becomes the fire warden.

A Kurdziel, achrn, thank you for your input, another perspective is always useful, I am wondering if something along the lines you ahve suggested may be the problem maybe they've heard stories of things going bad..

 This is a new posistion for me ( two weeks in) -  this is a small one so some ways of doing things and thinking are a bit alien to me.

The Fire Marshalls I have spoken with are generally concerned that they don't know what to do or why and if it all goes wrong they will be blamed. all they do is escort and account, fire fighting is not encouraged. As this is a modern office complex and well maintained I feel the risk of it all going pear shaped is low, but they are concerned so I am looking to provide some in-house confidence boosting,any suggestions welcome.

I will also be reviewing the FMP incase there is something lurking.

 I concur, the advice I was given was a "bit of cossetting" I am currently looking for the FSMP and putting some "cheerful" fire safety slides togther.

Originally Posted by: watcher

Originally Posted by: ShaunBaker91

Alot of companies make the payment as an incentive for employees to become interested and its a way of continued development if someone is seen not to be conducting there duties then the pay is taken away from them, this way, in the event of an incident, roles and responsibilities are more likely to be conducted in the correct manner as employees want to be seen to be conducting their duties to maintain their pay.

The issue with not paying the fund for first-aid and fire marshals is that you may find it hard to recruit people to go on the course as its extra responsibilities for the same pay as others without the responsibility.

I didn't understand any of this.  Are you saying that if a first aider is not paid, then they won't carry out first aid to the required standard?  Or that if no-one has an accident, or needs a plaster, then payment is withheld?

No Watcher, at my current workplace there are monthly first aid meetings where discussions are held on first-aid this is to keep knowledge up-to-date and relevant, my current workplace aim for a zero accident atmosphere, we have the occasional minor incident mainly same level trips. As long as first-aiders attend the monthly meetings then they continue to comply with duty and continue to be paid.

As for 'Are you saying that if a first aider is not paid, then they won't carry out first aid to the required standard?' No i was saying there could be a reduction in interest to become a first aider as the payment is an incentive for some, not all. and yes if a person became a first aider due to receiving additional payment then that payment was taken away then a few persons may feel that it is not worth being a first aider any longer, this happened in my previous workplace were the directors offered an additional £20 a month for first aiders and when the employees completed there course they were added to a first aid matrix and then refused payment 90% of the 12 who had become first aiders all refused to conduct first aid duties without additional payment and we were back at stage one.

I think the directors felt they had complied with the First aid Regs by have sufficient numbers of staff trained within first aid and in fairness they had complied.

Edited by user 29 May 2018 09:44:51(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified