What first aid provisions are required for builders and trade contractors?
Short Answer: Builders and trade contractors need first aid kits that match the hazards actually present on the job, the number of people working, and how long an ambulance would realistically take to arrive. The Safe Work Australia Model Code of Practice: First Aid in the Workplace treats construction as a higher risk setting than an office or a shopfront, which means bleeding control, eye irrigation and burn treatment all belong in the kit rather than a handful of plasters in a plastic box. For most residential and commercial sites that works out to at least one high-risk kit kept in the site shed or amenities area, backed by smaller portable kits in the utes, trailers and toolboxes that move between jobs.
That covers the baseline. Sites change shape week to week though, subbies come and go, and a kit that suited the frame stage can be the wrong fit once the fit-out trades turn up. Before you settle on what your crews carry, you also need to consider the following:
• What high-risk injuries are common on job sites?
• Should trauma modules be included in trade kits?
• How many kits are required per crew size?
• How can tradies ensure ongoing compliance across projects?
What high-risk injuries are common on job sites?
Construction injuries cluster around a few predictable mechanisms, and a kit is only useful if it reflects that pattern rather than a generic idea of what might go wrong.
Lacerations and puncture wounds sit at the top of the list. Circular saws, angle grinders, star pickets and exposed reo all produce wounds that bleed heavily and pick up contamination from dust, soil or rust on the way in. Cleaning capacity matters as much as the dressing that goes over the top, so saline pods and a decent supply of non-adherent dressings earn their space.
Eye injuries run a close second. Grinding sparks, concrete dust, insulation fibres and splashes of render slurry all end up under an eyelid at some point. A single small eyewash bottle is thin cover on a site where two or three trades are cutting at once, so larger 500 mL bottles or a mounted eyewash station make more sense where cutting and chasing happen daily.
Crush and impact injuries come from dropped material and plant reversing in tight spaces. They produce fractures, deep bruising and the occasional head knock, so triangular bandages and an instant cold pack earn their place even though they sit unused for months.
Burns are more varied than people expect. Bitumen, welding flash and cement all cause them. Wet concrete catches out apprentices most often, because alkaline burns can develop hours after the exposure and after the skin has already been rinsed off. Hydrogel dressings handle the immediate treatment while someone organises transport.
Should trauma modules be included in trade kits?
On most building sites, yes. A trauma module separates managing a wound from controlling a bleed that will drop someone before an ambulance clears the front gate. A nicked artery from a dropped grinder or a fall onto reo is not a common event, but it is a survivable one when the right gear is within arm's reach.
A workable module holds a windlass tourniquet, a haemostatic dressing, an Israeli-style compression bandage, trauma shears and a marker for recording the time a tourniquet went on. It takes up little room and can sit as a sealed pouch inside the main kit so nobody raids it for a paper cut.
The gear only counts if someone can use it. A tourniquet applied loosely can make bleeding worse by cutting venous return while leaving arterial flow intact, so at least one person per crew should hold current certification covering severe bleeding. Site inductions are the place to point out where the trauma pouch lives, since the people most likely to need it are often the ones who arrived that morning.
Defibrillation belongs in the same conversation. Cardiac arrest on site is not limited to older workers, and survival drops with every minute that passes. In South Australia, the Automated External Defibrillators (Public Access) Act 2022 has brought AEDs into scope for many workplaces and buildings, and other states are moving the same way through their codes. Larger sites and any project with restricted access should treat an AED as part of the first aid provision rather than an optional extra.
How many kits are required per crew size?
The Model Code of Practice does not hand out a fixed kit-per-worker ratio, which frustrates builders who want a number they can point at. What it sets instead is an expectation that kits are accessible and adequate for the hazards, without someone having to walk across a live site to find one.
The Code is more specific about trained first aiders. For high risk workplaces, which covers most construction work, it suggests one first aider for every 25 workers, against one for every 50 in low risk settings. Remote high risk workplaces also sit at one for every 25, and that figure matters on regional jobs where the nearest hospital is an hour away.
As a practical rule, most builders land on one high-risk kit for every 25 workers or every separate work area, whichever produces more kits. A single kit in a shed at the front of a 40-lot subdivision is not accessible to a crew working the back fence line. Add a portable kit per vehicle for trades who split off to other jobs during the day, and a smaller personal kit for anyone working alone in a roof space or a trench.
Kit contents still take their cue from AS 2675-1983, the original benchmark for workplace kits and the reference point most Australian suppliers build against. Scale contents up rather than duplicating them for larger crews, since three basic kits do not equal one properly stocked high-risk kit when the injury is serious.
Where sites run multiple trades under one principal contractor, it also pays to write kit responsibility into the subcontractor agreement. Otherwise every trade assumes the builder has it covered, and the workplace kit ends up being whatever the chippies brought with them.
How can tradies ensure ongoing compliance across projects?
Compliance falls over between jobs more often than on any single job. Gear gets used at one address, the kit goes back in the ute, and nobody restocks it before the next site opens. Six weeks later the crew reaches for a burn dressing that was used up in April.
A register solves most of this. Record every kit by location or vehicle, assign one person to check it monthly, and keep a signed and dated sheet inside the lid. The check covers contents against the list, expiry dates on saline and burn gel, and the condition of the container after months in a hot ute tray.
State requirements shift as well, so a business working across borders watches more than one rulebook. Western Australia updated its Code of Practice for first aid in the workplace in 2024, and South Australia's AED legislation changed what larger workplaces are expected to hold. A contractor that sets its standard to the strictest state avoids rewriting procedures every time it wins work interstate.
Records also matter after the fact. If a regulator turns up following an incident, the difference between a conversation and a notice often comes down to whether you can show the kit was stocked and checked before the injury happened. Furthermore, a special duty is placed on the PCBU to ensure that all first aid kits are routinely inspected and maintained.
For builders running several sites at once, that duty is easier to meet with help. SURVIVALSWAP handles the restocking, swapping out used and expired stock on a managed schedule so kits stay compliant without a supervisor chasing paperwork on a Friday afternoon. It also creates the record trail that proves maintenance was happening all along.
Related Question
Do sole traders and one-person subcontractors need their own first aid kit?
Yes. A sole trader is still a PCBU under work health and safety law, and the duty to provide first aid applies to a business of one the same way it applies to a business of fifty. Working alone raises the stakes, because there is nobody to fetch the kit or make the call while you apply pressure. A compact vehicle kit with a trauma pouch, a charged phone and the habit of telling someone where you are working covers the practical side. If you are on a site run by a principal contractor, their kit is there for emergencies, but relying on it does not discharge your own duty.
Conclusion
First aid on a building site comes down to the distance between an injury and the gear that treats it. Match the kit to the hazards your trades actually create, put enough of them within reach of every work area, and keep a record showing the kits were maintained between projects rather than restocked the week an inspector arrived.
If you are working out what your crews should carry, SURVIVAL builds kits to Australian workplace requirements and can put together a set that suits your trade mix and site count. Consumables, wall brackets, vehicle mounts and replacement modules are stocked through the first aid accessories range, so kits can be topped up without replacing the whole thing.