News

ELS In Schools    http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/ELSstmt.htm

The Resuscitation Council (UK) is working in partnership with the British Heart Foundation, supported by numerous organisations, to lobby Parliament to include ELS as a mandatory part of the national school curriculum.

What is Emergency Life Support?
 
Emergency Life Support (ELS) is the set of actions needed to keep someone alive until professional help arrives. It includes performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), dealing with choking, serious bleeding and helping someone who may be having a heart attack.

What are we calling for?
 
We are calling for ELS, including vital CPR, to be a mandatory part of the National Curriculum in England. Secondary school students should be taught it from year 7, and their skills should be refreshed every year until they leave school.

ELS is simple, and easy to teach and learn. It can be performed without any special medical knowledge. It takes as little as two hours to teach, just 0.2% of a school year. Teachers can include ELS in a range of different subjects including Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE), and Science, Physical Education, and Citizenship.

Children of 10 years and above can learn the full range of ELS including vital CPR, and younger children are also able to learn many of the skills. Teachers at primary school should be encouraged to teach their children many of the skills including dialling 999, calling for help and checking for danger.

The Government is currently reviewing the content of the national curriculum.

New British Standard Workplace first aid kit    http://www.aofa.org/   
 
You may have seen information about the new British Standard Workplace first aid kit. (BS8599)
 
First of all don't panic, your existing first aid kit does not need to be replaced if it is currently meeting your needs.
 
Despite the hype, there is not such a thing as a HSE first aid kit, even though first aid suppliers tend to sell them. The contents of these are simply based on HSE recommendations and are not meant to be mandatory.

The HSE are deliberately non-prescriptive on the contents. It is the employers' responsibility to determine what is suitable. This, like all first aid provision is based on the hazards in the workplace taking into account past injuries, number of employees etc.
For example, if you handle rough cut wood, splinters and small cuts may be commonplace, in which case you may need a larger number of plasters.
Or say in a restaurant where small burns are common, here you may need to seek other burn relief products. So what goes into the first aid box is up to you.
Because it is the employer who determine the contents, the HSE will not be making the new BS8599 first aid kit mandatory. It is also unlikely that they will even amend their current recommendations.

The HSE will not be making the new BS8599 first aid kit mandatory

However, the BS8599 is a more extensive first aid kit and contains additional items such as adhesive tape, shears, foil emergency blanket, mouth to mouth resuscitation device etc. Overall, this is a much better first aid kit for the workplace but it is up to the employer to decide if the increased costs are worth it.
 
NEW: The HSE will be releasing a newsletter on their website soon. However a copy of their wording is as follows:

First Aid Kits and British Standard 8599

There is a British Standard BS 8599 for first aid kits, it is not a regulatory requirement under the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 to purchase kits that comply with this standard. Instead the contents of a first aid box is dependent on an employers first aid needs assessment.

This means for employers following a needs assessment the options are:

1. Within your workplace you have access to a first aid kit whose contents complies with BS 8599 and matches your needs assessment;
 or
2. Within your workplace you have access to a first aid kit whose contents matches your needs assessment but does not comply with the requirements of BS 8599.