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FORM_FA_01 — Burns: What To Do

Document Information

Field Value
Document Reference FORM_FA_01
Issue Number 3
Issue Date 29 September 2026
Next Review 29 September 2027
Controlled By Leanne Mason (Director)
Approved By Aaron Mason, Director

Print this and keep it with the burns kit

Double-sided A5, sized to sit in or on the kit. A sheet kept in a folder will not be found in time.

Download FORM_FA_01 (A5 card, .pdf)

Guidance, not training

This does not make anyone a first aider. If a trained first aider is there, they take over. If the burn is serious, call 999 first and treat while you wait.

Call 999 now if

  • The burn is bigger than the casualty's palm
  • It is on the face, hands, feet, genitals or across a joint
  • It goes all the way round an arm, leg, finger or toe
  • The skin is white, brown, black or leathery, or they cannot feel it
  • It is a chemical burn — any chemical, any size
  • It is an electrical burn, including any contact with a live main
  • They have breathed in smoke, steam or fumes, or are hoarse, coughing or wheezing
  • They are confused, drowsy, shivering badly or grey and clammy
  • You are not sure

If you are not sure, call. Burns get worse for hours after the heat stops.

Heat burns and scalds

  1. Stop the burning. Clothing alight: stop, drop, wrap, roll.
  2. Cool under running water for 20 minutes. Start now. Still helps up to three hours later. Running water beats anything in the kit, and on an AMWS job there is usually water. Use it.
  3. Take off rings, watch, belt, boots before it swells. Leave anything stuck to the burn.
  4. Cover it. Cling film laid lengthways, or a burns dressing. Never wrap cling film round a limb.
  5. Keep them warm. Foil blanket over the rest of them, not over the burn.
  6. Record it under SOP 8.1. More than seven days off work is RIDDOR reportable.

Never

  • Ice or iced water
  • Creams, ointments, butter, toothpaste
  • Bursting blisters
  • Fluffy dressings or cotton wool
  • Stopping the cooling early because they say it is fine

Chemical burns

Call 999 for any chemical burn, whatever its size.

  1. Gloves on first. You cannot help anyone if the same chemical gets you.
  2. Brush off dry powder before adding water.
  3. Flush with running water for at least 20 minutes, longer for a strong alkali.
  4. Cut contaminated clothing off while flushing, rather than pulling it over the head.
  5. Send the safety data sheet to hospital with them, or a photo of the product label.

Alkalis are the deceptive ones. Traffic film remover and chlorinated cleaner hurt less than they should at first and keep penetrating for hours. Flush longer and call anyway.

Eyes: irrigate with the saline eye wash or clean running water, hold the eyelid open, keep going 20 minutes, then hospital. Do not let them rub it.

Who to call
Emergency 999, ask for ambulance. No clear address on site, give the what3words location
First aiders Leanne Mason and Jason May
Site incidents Jason May, Site Supervisor
Reporting SOP 8.1, then Sean Ashton for RIDDOR assessment

Neither first aider may be on site. If someone is burnt and you cannot find them, call 999 and start cooling.

Sources: HSE first aid at work guidance and NHS burns and scalds advice. General workplace guidance; it does not replace training or clinical judgement.

Audit trail

Issue Date Approved By Summary
3 29/09/2026 Aaron Mason, Director Cut to a double-sided A5 card so that it fits with the kit rather than in a folder. The clinical content is unchanged: the 999 criteria, twenty minutes of cool running water, the never list, the chemical sequence and the contacts all stand exactly as issued. Removed from the sheet were the kit contents list, the table of AMWS substances and their COSHH references, and the kit checking instruction, because the kit shows its own contents, the substances are assessed in APP_09, and the check belongs to APP_18. Distributed as a print-ready PDF rather than a Word file, since the sheet is printed and laminated rather than edited.
2 29/09/2026 Aaron Mason, Director First aid cover corrected. Both Emergency First Aid at Work certificates are on file — Leanne Mason to 16/06/2029 and Jason May to 29/11/2028 — so the guidance names two first aiders and no longer records cover as resting on one person whose certificate was unfiled. Kit inspection frequency corrected from monthly to quarterly, which is the interval the APP_18 record evidences. The burns guidance itself is unchanged.
1 15/09/2026 Aaron Mason, Director Initial issue. Produced as office-based guidance to sit with the burns kit. Covers heat burns and, separately, chemical burns, because AMWS carries two H314 substances where the burn mechanism and the treatment differ from a scald. States plainly that cool running water for 20 minutes beats anything in the kit.

This document forms part of A M Water Services Limited's Integrated Management System. Paper copies are uncontrolled when printed.