Keeping workplace first aid kits fully stocked and up-to-date ensures the safety and wellbeing of your colleagues, customers and clients.
Is a first aid kit required in every workplace?
By law, every Australian workplace must have a fully compliant first aid kit appropriate to the anticipated or apparent risks and hazards there. Depending on the size and scope of a workplace, more than one kit may be necessary.
Workplaces are not limited to factories, warehouses, workshops, shops and offices. Workplaces include any place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking, including construction sites, vehicles, ships and aircraft, and even private homes.
Workplace safety is also not limited to workers but involves the management of risks to the health and safety of everyone in a business or organisation. This includes the health and safety of workers as well as customers, visitors, contractors and volunteers.
What is the legal requirement for first aid kits at work?
A minimum of one first aid kit must be provided at every workplace in Australia. The larger or more complex the physical workplace is, the more kits may be required – not necessarily to cover the number of people there, but to ensure that everyone has access to first aid facilities whether they be on different levels of a building, in storage or locked areas, or remote outposts.
Each kit must have a sufficient supply of first aid supplies appropriate to the unique circumstances of the workplace. All first aid kits should be located where they are easily accessible.
If your workplace is audited by a government safety inspector and your first aid kits aren’t stocked with the right items within the correct expiry dates, you can find yourself be in serious trouble.
If a government safety inspector finds health and safety contraventions at your workplace, the authority can investigate, and prosecute.
Why self-audit your workplace first aid kits?
Self-auditing your workplace first aid kits means you never find yourself caught short in an emergency or accident.
There’s nothing worse than rushing for the first aid kit in an emergency only to find it’s missing essential items you need right there and then.
Regularly auditing your kits assures you’re fully compliant and fully prepared and ready to respond to a workplace emergency.
How often should first aid kits be checked in the workplace?
Scheduling first aid kit audits depends on your workplace hazards, workplace kit, and first aid usage.
An office will generally use fewer first aid supplies than an industrial workshop or a busy cafe.
A low-risk workplace with low usage should audit its workplace first aid kit every six-to-twelve months.
A medium-risk workplace with medium usage should audit its workplace first aid kit every three-to-six months.
A high-risk workplace with high usage should audit its workplace first aid kit monthly or even weekly.
How do you do a workplace first aid kit self-audit?
Every Brenniston National Standard Workplace First Aid Kit comes with a contents list.
To audit the kit yourself, take out all the items and check them off against the contents list.
If you’ve misplaced the contents list, you can download a copy for free from the kit product page on the Brenniston website.
Be sure to check the number of items, stock quality, manufacturing dates, and expiry dates. Any first aid items out of date will be removed and replaced.
The most common items that tend to need replacing are low-adherent dressings, antiseptic sprays, eye washes, bandages, and wound dressings.
Some items have a small hourglass symbol with the expiry date printed next to it.
If there’s no hourglass registration date on a first aid item, there will be a manufacture date. If that date is five years ago or older, the item needs to be replaced.
Brenniston First Aid Kit Audits
You can take the stress out of keeping your first aid kits up-to-date and up to standard by arranging a Brenniston First Aid Kit Audit.
One of our First Aid Kit Auditors can check your kit for compliance and expired stock, and design a program to manage the first aid stock levels in any high-turnover kits across multiple first aid stations.
Call Brenniston Customer Care on 1300 730 079 to arrange your kit audit or complete this easy online form.
Brenniston Workplace First Aid Kit Audits ensure your business or organisation stays on the right side of the law with a fully compliant first aid kit.
Proudly Australian
Brenniston is licensed to manufacture workplace first aid kits under Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) Licence ID 145972.
Every Brenniston National Standard Workplace First Aid Kit, Clean-Up Kit, Hygiene Kit, and Module is proudly designed and made in Melbourne.
This ensures our kits meet Australian workplace regulations, are quality controlled and support local industry.
Brenniston is a 100 percent Australian-owned family business, here to help make your work a safer place.
And make your workplace first aid kit audits easy and stress-free.