Posted By JB One of our employees is a diabetic and has suggested that details of his medical condition be made available to the company's First Aiders. This seems a sensible course of action and we are now considering asking all employees (on a voluntary basis) to consider making relevant medical information available to first aiders. Does anyone have experience of this, and ideas of the best way to provide such information? Many thanks John

Posted By steve jones JB, I am a type 1 diabetic and as a fire safety and health and safety officer within a large high street retailer decided to do the same. However a lot of staff did not want to give the first aider team there medical details for fear of "gossiping" among them. there was also advice from the occupational health team regarding"patient confidentially"!!! but what i did was to create an emergency diabetic kit where all first aiders knew the position and what was in it and what symptoms to recognize in a diabetic emergency. hope this helps. steve

Posted By Lilian McCartney we have at least one member of whoever has a medical condition that might require first aid's team aware of the situation. If the person is unable to advise the first aider at time of any incident then these people can. I don't know of anyone who doesn't want to say cos as soon as they do they've told someone! First aider will check to make sure its the medical condition causing the problem and not something else but it certainly makes it easier for them to know about certain medical conditions e.g. diabetes, epliepsy, allergies etc. We don't actually record this anywhere though (apart from Personal file in HR/Occ health etc) have a Happy Easter, I'm off on hols Lilian

Posted By Tabs Yes ask people to disclose *relevant* information. There are many conditions that simply do not warrant telling the first aider about because there is no first aid requirements (e.g. liver disease, kidney disease, etc.). Information about epilepsy and diabetes can influence a first aider's ability to help and talking about the subject beforehand can certainly help (e.g. "Please don't call an ambulance, unless I am affected for more than five minutes"). Patient confidentiality is a voluntary code of ethics for medically trained personnel as far as I am aware, and has no legal implications here - but as decent people, first aiders should never gossip, or even disclose such information until such time as it is important to do so. Helping the first aiders in this way is in the self interest of the employee... I would avoid writing it down though because the Data Protection Act might then be invoked.

Posted By CRN Baker I think this is useful exercise. Although I don't have a medical condition, I do have a serious allergy to a widely prescribed antibiotic, which, should I ever need emergency medical treatment, I need people to be aware of. We have done this where I work and have had a mixed response. For those people who participated, they have the comfort of knowing that the information they have made available is easily accessible but in a secure location, which a first aider can access through the duty manager (out of hours) or HR. HTH

Posted By John Murgatroyd "I think this is useful exercise. Although I don't have a medical condition, I do have a serious allergy to a widely prescribed antibiotic, which, should I ever need emergency medical treatment, I need people to be aware of" I'm surprised yo do not carry either a bracelet with your problem on it, or any of the other means of alerting medical personnel to your condition. I carry a medic-alert "talisman"...http://www.medicalert.org.uk/ I fail to see any reason to tell first aiders about anything, especially if you intend to not write things down because you are worried about the DPA.....sounds really nasty....whispering from one to the other....a sad and nasty way of carrying-on....either do it properly with written information available only to a few and with STRICT rules about works gossiping or just forget it.... "well, we was told he 'ad a problem wiv 'is 'eart sorta...but 'e wouldn't let us write it dahnnn gov...so we forgot" Anyone with a problem that needs to be communicated to medical personnel in case of an emergency should carry that info upon their person. First aiders "need to know"...they don't...if the diabetic is too far gone to sort themselves out then they are too far gone for a fist aider to sort out. I don't even let first aiders touch me...