Planning an event can be challenging, let alone trying to arrange suitable medical cover for your event.
You may think that having a couple of people on-site who have undertaken a First Aid at Work Course might be sufficient, but their knowledge and skills are limited. Depending on the type of event that you are running, there may be specific safety and medical guidelines that you would need to comply with in order to have the event passed by the local authority.
In this article, we plan to try and assist you through some of the 'red tape' and get a better understanding of what medical provision you'll likely need for your event.
In the UK, first aid legal requirements at events are covered by the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981. These regulations require all employers to provide ‘adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities, and personnel to ensure their employees receive immediate attention if they are injured or taken ill at work’. The HSE recommends including event attendees also.
Additionally, there is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which covers most employer activities and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (MHSWR) 1999. Both of these include the requirement to assess and protect workers. The MHSWR (specifically) introduced the legal need to undertake risk assessments. As an event organiser, you have a legal duty of care to event attendees. Part of this included adequately assessing the first aid requirements for your event.
Event organisers could be prosecuted for breaching these pieces of legislation so it is worth knowing what they are and how they might affect you. If you use volunteers for your event, they are classed as employees, and you still need to undertake the same steps and precautions.
It’s worth remembering that an event site is a workplace from the moment you arrive to start the setup to leaving following close down. In the case of large-scale events, this can include hundreds of people being onsite for days beforehand.
Event organisers have a legal requirement to assess the first aid requirements of that work in addition to the actual ‘event’ opening hours.
There isn’t a law that specifically mentions legal requirements for first aid for event attendees. Still, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) strongly recommends that members of the public are included in any risk assessment undertaken for first aid requirements.
If your event is taking place on publicly owned land, you may need to participate in a Safety Advisory Group (SAG) during the event planning process. SAGs are forums co-ordinated by your local authority and include representatives from the emergency services and other relevant parties. They do not have any legal powers or responsibilities. Still, they provide an excellent opportunity to engage with people who can help you to meet your legal requirements for first aid amongst many other things.
Remember that the event organiser (you!) has the overall legal duty for ensuring public safety. You can not absolve yourself of this or pass it onto another person.
Source: https://www.eventunitypro.com/what-are-first-aid-legal-requirements-at-events-uk/
There are many factors that influence what level of medical cover that you may need for your event, and they factor into our event quotation process. These include:
You will also need to provide us with a risk assessment of your event. You can find out more on how to create a risk assessment on the Health and Safety Executive's website.
When considering what level of medical cover is right for your event, there are many different guidelines which can appear confusing, if you don't know what you are looking for. As experts in our field, we have put together a comprehensive list of event guidelines which we use to assist us in the quotation and provision of our event medical cover. These guidelines also help us form the basis of our event medical plan and risk assessment (which you'll need to provide to the local authority when submitting your event proposal).
The main guidelines that we use are the Purple Guide for event cover, and the Green Guide, which covers safety at sports grounds. There are various other event specific guidelines which we also use such as those for athletics and road races, motorsports events, equestrian, cycling and rugby.
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If you need event medical cover for your event, please feel free to get in touch with us for a free, no obligation quotation. Email us at events@zulusafety.co.uk or call the office on 0333 920 2126.