How are workplaces classified into first aid risk categories?
Short Answer: Australian first aid guidance sorts workplaces into two categories, low risk and high risk, with extra provisions for work in remote or isolated areas. Medium risk is not a formal category in the Safe Work Australia Model Code of Practice, although it is common on kit labels as shorthand for workplaces that mix both. Your category comes from a first aid risk assessment of the hazards your workers face. It sets the suggested number of first aiders and shapes how far your first aid kits need to go beyond the standard contents list.
The category is a starting point for the rest of your first aid arrangements, so before deciding where your workplace sits, you also need to consider the following:
• What defines a low-risk workplace under Australian guidelines?
• What additional supplies are required for high-risk sites?
• Can a business change risk categories over time?
• How should kit contents adjust as risk increases?
What defines a low-risk workplace under Australian guidelines?
The Model Code of Practice: First Aid in the Workplace describes a low-risk workplace as one where workers are not exposed to hazards that could result in serious injury or illness, giving offices, shops and libraries as examples. Injuries needing first aid there are expected to be minor. The Code suggests one first aider for every 50 workers in that setting, and a first aid room once the workforce reaches 200.
Low risk does not mean no risk. Cardiac arrest and severe allergic reactions can happen in any building, which is why the Code treats the standard kit and a trained first aider as the baseline everywhere. South Australia's Automated External Defibrillators (Public Access) Act 2022 already requires defibrillators at certain buildings regardless of how routine the work inside them is. Victoria, outside the harmonised laws, uses a similar split in WorkSafe Victoria's 2021 compliance code, distinguishing low-risk workplaces from higher-risk ones.
Medium risk is where the label and the law part ways. A café with a commercial kitchen or a school with a woodwork room is still classified as either low or high risk overall. In practice, it is a low-risk workplace with higher-risk pockets, and the Code's answer is to treat those areas on their own terms. It recommends first aid kits in each work area of a mixed workplace and extra equipment wherever an injury is more likely, which is what a medium-risk kit is really trying to achieve.
What additional supplies are required for high-risk sites?
The Code defines a high-risk workplace as one where workers are exposed to hazards that could result in serious injury or illness. Its examples include hazardous machinery such as mobile plant and chainsaws, and falls from height in construction and stevedoring. Hazardous substances and hazardous forms of work such as confined spaces count too, as do extreme heat or cold and the risk of physical violence. The suggested ratio tightens to one first aider for every 25 workers, or one for every 10 where timely access to ambulance services cannot be assured, with a first aid room recommended from 100 workers.
The Code's recommended contents list in Appendix C stays the foundation, and the additions follow the hazards. A burns module adds burn instruction cards with hydrogel sachets and dressings, plus clean polythene sheets for covering large burns. Eye hazards call for extra eye pads, and the Code recommends eye wash equipment wherever hazardous chemicals could injure the eyes.
Outdoor and remote work have their own additions in the Code, including a 10 centimetre heavy-duty crepe bandage and a thermal blanket for sites where help is far away. Some high-risk sites need more than the Code lists. Where machinery could cause life-threatening bleeding, Australian and New Zealand resuscitation guidelines support a commercially manufactured tourniquet in the hands of a trained first aider.
Can a business change risk categories over time?
Yes, and the shift often happens without anyone deciding it. A small online retailer that starts running its own warehouse moves from desks to forklifts, and a contractor that wins work on a remote site has changed its risk profile just as clearly. The Code recommends reviewing first aid against a risk assessment whenever the way work is done changes or new work practices are introduced.
Movement runs in both directions. A manufacturer that outsources production and keeps only its design office may genuinely become low risk, although it should document why before reducing first aid cover. Growth matters as well, because adding staff can push a workplace past the numbers where an extra first aider or a first aid room is suggested, and the Code lists seasonal changes in the workforce as a reason to revisit first aider numbers.
The review should be written down. Western Australia's first aid code, updated in November 2024, sets the same expectations, and an inspector looking at a changed workplace will want to see that the first aid arrangements changed with it.
How should kit contents adjust as risk increases?
Adjust by hazard rather than by size. A bigger box of adhesive strips does little for a welding bay, while a burns module placed beside it does a great deal. Each step up in risk should add the specific items your assessment identified, along with enough quantity to cope with more than one casualty or a long wait for an ambulance.
Location tightens as well. In a low-risk office one central kit may be enough, but a high-risk site needs kits close to the hazards themselves so nobody walks the length of a building with a serious wound. Training follows the same path. HLTAID011 Provide First Aid suits most workplaces, and where help could be hours away the Code points towards first aiders trained in more advanced techniques, such as those holding HLTAID013 Provide first aid in remote or isolated site.
Furthermore, a special duty is placed on the PCBU to ensure that all first aid kits are routinely inspected and maintained, and higher-risk sites use their kits faster, so checks need to come around more often. SURVIVALSWAP restocks used and expiring items on a managed schedule matched to how quickly each site works through its supplies.
Related Question
Is a workplace's risk category decided by its industry?
Not directly. The Code's examples point to industries such as construction or laboratories because those are where the relevant hazards usually sit, but the category depends on the hazards actually present. A construction company's head office is a low-risk workplace, while its building sites are high risk, and both belong to the same business. An accounting firm whose staff drive long distances to rural clients may need remote-work provisions that its city office does not. The safest approach is to assess each site, and each distinct area within a site, against the Code's definitions rather than assuming the industry name settles the question. Recording that assessment also gives you a clear answer if an inspector ever asks how the category was chosen.
Conclusion
First aid risk categories are simpler than the labels suggest, with two formal tiers plus extra provisions for remote work, and a medium-risk kit best understood as a low-risk workplace with higher-risk areas. The category matters less than the assessment behind it, because that is what tells you which supplies to add and where to put them. SURVIVAL supplies workplace first aid kits with contents set against the Safe Work Australia Model Code, along with the modules and accessories that take a kit from low risk to high. If your work has changed since your last risk assessment, revisiting your category is the place to start.