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FORM_FA_02 — First Aid: What To Do

Document Information

Field Value
Document Reference FORM_FA_02
Issue Number 1
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 first aid kit

Double-sided A5, sized to sit in or on the kit. Its companion, FORM_FA_01, covers burns and chemicals and sits with the burns kit.

Download FORM_FA_02 (A5 card, .pdf)

Guidance, not training

This does not make anyone a first aider. If a trained first aider is there, they take over. Burns and chemical injuries are on FORM_FA_01 and are not repeated here.

First, every time

  1. Make it safe. Traffic, a live main, gas, an unsupported trench. Do not become the second casualty.
  2. Check them. Talk to them, squeeze their shoulders. Any response?
  3. Shout for help. Send someone for the kit and someone to meet the ambulance.
  4. Call 999. Give the location. No clear address on site, give the what3words location.

Call 999 now if

  • They are unresponsive, or not breathing normally
  • There is bleeding you cannot stop
  • Chest pain, or they are struggling to breathe
  • A fall from height, a vehicle strike or a crush
  • A suspected broken bone, or a head, neck or back injury
  • Anything electrical, including contact with a live main
  • A fit, or sudden weakness, slurred speech or a drooping face
  • You are not sure

If you are not sure, call. Nobody has ever been criticised for calling.

Never go in after someone

Not into a confined space, not into an unsupported trench, not into water, and not near a live main. Call 999, keep everyone back, and wait for rescue. Going in is how one casualty becomes two.

999 will talk you through it. Stay on the line, put it on speaker, and do what they say. That is the single most useful thing an untrained person can do.

Bleeding you cannot stop

Press hard with a dressing or your gloved hand and keep pressing. Do not lift it to look. Soaked through, put another dressing on top. Lie them down. Leave anything embedded where it is and pad around it.

Unresponsive and not breathing normally

999 first, then chest compressions: heel of the hand in the centre of the chest, hard and fast, and do not stop until help takes over. The 999 operator counts with you, and will say where the nearest public-access defibrillator is.

Choking

If they cannot cough, speak or breathe: five sharp back blows between the shoulder blades, then five abdominal thrusts. Keep alternating. Call 999 if it does not clear. Get them checked either way.

Something in the eye

Irrigate with the saline eye wash or clean water, eyelid held open, 20 minutes, then hospital. Do not let them rub it and do not try to remove anything embedded.

A knock to the head

Call 999 if they are drowsy, confused, vomiting or fitting, if one pupil is bigger than the other, or if there is clear fluid from the nose or ear. In doubt, they stop work and get checked.

Sprains and strains

Rest it, ice wrapped in cloth and never straight on the skin, support it, raise it. Looked at if they cannot put weight on 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
Afterwards SOP 8.1 accident book, then Sean Ashton for RIDDOR assessment

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

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

Audit trail

Issue Date Approved By Summary
1 29/09/2026 Aaron Mason, Director Initial issue, as the companion to FORM_FA_01. The burns card sits with the burns kit; this one sits with the HSE 20-person kits and covers what an untrained person faces before an ambulance arrives. Deliberately short. It gives the safety check, the 999 criteria, the instruction never to enter a confined space, an unsupported trench or water to reach someone, and the handful of things that change an outcome — catastrophic bleeding, compressions, choking, eye irrigation and head-injury red flags. Kit contents are not listed, because the kit shows its own; burns and chemicals are not repeated, because they are on FORM_FA_01.

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