First Aider Calculator
An indicative starting point for your first aid needs assessment under HSE L74. The output below is a recommendation, not a statutory minimum — needs assessment is your responsibility and may produce a different answer for reasons this tool cannot capture.
Methodology drawn from HSE publication L74 (First aid at work: The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 — Approved Code of Practice and guidance).
Total number of employees typically present.
Lower hazard: typical offices, retail, light commercial. Higher hazard: industrial, construction, machinery, chemicals, significant manual handling.
How this works
The calculator is built on the needs-assessment framework set out in HSE publication L74. Lower-hazard environments take EFAW with roughly one trained person per fifty employees as a starting point; higher-hazard environments take FAW with proportionally greater coverage. The starting ratios are then adjusted for layout (multi-floor and multi-site sites need redundancy), distance from emergency medical services (rural locations need more cover to compensate for slower ambulance response), and public access (premises serving the public may need to respond to non-employee incidents).
The calculator does not factor in specific industry guidance (for example, construction sites have specific provisions under CDM 2015), vulnerable workers, or insurer-specific requirements. Treat the output as a starting point for a documented needs assessment, not a substitute for one.