First Aid Training Requirements in New Zealand

Your workplace does. Under regulation 13 of the GRWM Regulations 2016, a PCBU must ensure that an adequate number of workers are trained to administer first aid, or that workers have access to an adequate number of other trained people. That second option matters: a small office next door to a medical centre may satisfy the duty differently from a remote forestry crew. What you can’t do is provide a stocked first aid kit and nothing else. Equipment, facilities and trained people are three separate requirements and all three have to be met.

There is no national ratio. WorkSafe’s position is that you assess your own workplace, taking account of the nature of the work, the size and layout of the site, the number of workers and how spread out they are. You must involve your workers in that assessment. Commonly cited figures like one first aider per fifty workers in a low-risk office are industry rules of thumb, not law, and they don’t survive contact with shift work. If you operate around the clock, coverage has to exist around the clock. A single first aider working weekdays leaves you short on nights and weekends, and when they go on holiday.

No. Nothing in the Act or the Regulations requires unit standards. They become compulsory only where some other rule imposes them: a sector regulation, a licensing condition, or a client’s contract terms. Outside those cases, the test is whether your first aiders are actually capable of administering first aid, not which paperwork they hold.

Yes. No New Zealand law requires first aid training to be delivered in a classroom or to include a practical assessment. What the law requires is that people are trained to administer first aid. Online training is legitimate, and for some purposes it’s better: it costs less, needs no scheduling, and lets you train a whole workforce rather than the two people you could spare for a day. What online training cannot do is award unit standards, because those require practical assessment by an accredited assessor.

Two years. That’s not set in legislation; it’s the interval training providers use and WorkSafe references, and it’s what auditors and clients will expect. After two years a first aider should do refresher or revalidation training.

Sectors with their own regulations or licensing regimes. Early childhood education services must have staff holding a current first aid qualification under the early childhood regulations. Electrical workers need a first aid course to renew an EWRB practising licence. Aviation, policing and some healthcare and outdoor recreation roles have their own requirements.

Level 2 covers providing first aid and basic life support to a casualty: the DRSABCD approach, CPR, AED use, bleeding, burns, fractures, choking and the common medical conditions. Level 3 adds less common injuries and illnesses, plus managing the situation rather than just the patient: multiple casualties, directing bystanders, scene safety and handover to emergency services. Most workplaces need level 2 capability across a lot of people. In higher risk workplaces, level 3 is useful for whoever is nominated to take charge.

The full range of level 2 content, plus a number of the less common injuries and illnesses that usually only appear in a level 3 course. It does not cover emergency management (taking charge of a scene with multiple casualties and directing others). It’s designed to give a whole workforce genuine capability at a price that makes training everyone realistic.

Telling workers what’s available. All workers must be given clear information about the location of first aid kits, the names and locations of first aiders, where the first aid room is if there is one, and the procedure for getting help. That information should be given at induction, when the nature or location of their work changes, when first aiders change, and at regular intervals as a reminder.