A restaurant needs a kit carrying the 24 items in Appendix C of the model Code of Practice plus burn additions, and one trained first aider for every 25 workers because a commercial kitchen is a high risk workplace.
Skai Solutions builds phone agents for Australian and New Zealand venues, so we read a lot of operator obligations that nobody writes for hospitality. This page applies the first aid Code to a kitchen, including the ratio that quietly understates what a rostered venue needs.
Regulation 42 of the model Work Health and Safety Regulations puts three duties on the person conducting the business. You must ensure an adequate number of workers are trained to administer first aid, or that they have access to enough trained people. You must provide first aid equipment and make sure every worker can get to it. And you must provide access to facilities for administering first aid.
What the regulation does not do is hand you a shopping list. The detail sits in the model Code of Practice on first aid in the workplace, which is guidance rather than a rule, and which a regulator will measure you against anyway. Appendix C of that Code lists 24 recommended items for a general kit. That list is the thing most "compliant kit" products on the market are built from.
Read the Code once and one absence stands out: there is no hospitality specific guidance in it at all. Not a line on kitchens, not a line on hot oil, not a line on knives. Every other industry gets a worked example and food service does not. Which means the work of applying it to a venue falls to you, and this page is that work.
This is the question the whole page turns on, because the Code gives two different ratios depending on the answer:
A commercial kitchen runs deep fryers at frying temperature, open flame, a chargrill, boiling stock, sharp knives at speed, a wet floor and a mandoline. Judge that against the Code's own description of a high risk workplace and the honest answer is that a kitchen is high risk, so the figure to work to is one first aider for every 25 workers rather than one for every 50. A front of house only operation with no cooking, a bottle shop counter say, is a different case.
Nobody will send you a letter confirming which bracket you are in. You make the assessment, you write down why, and you keep it. That record is worth more in an inspection than the kit itself.
Here is the arithmetic, and it is ours rather than the Code's. The ratio is expressed per worker. A venue does not operate per worker, it operates per shift.
Take a venue with 25 staff on the books. One first aider satisfies the high risk ratio exactly. Now roster those 25 people across a breakfast shift, a day shift and a night shift, six days a week. Your single trained person works perhaps four of those eighteen shifts. For the other fourteen, about three quarters of your trading hours, there is nobody on the floor who has been trained. The ratio is met and the venue is not covered.
So the number to plan to is not a ratio at all. It is one trained first aider rostered on every shift, plus one spare for leave and turnover. In a venue running three shifts that is usually four to six people trained, not one. Build it into the roster the same way you build in a responsible service qualification. Our roster rules page covers the other constraints that shape the same grid, and staff turnover is the reason you train the spare.
The Code is specific about burn risk, and this is the part a generic office kit does not carry. Where workers face a risk of burns, the Code says to add hydro gel, eight sachets of 3.5 grams, and clean polythene sheets in small, medium and large. Where there is a risk of serious burns to a large area of the face or body, it calls for shower equipment.
Three practical notes on that. Hydro gel sachets carry an expiry date, so they are the item most likely to be out of date in a kit that has sat on a wall since the fit out. Polythene sheets are for covering a burn without sticking to it, which is why cling film ends up used for the job in kitchens that do not stock them properly. And the shower line is not hypothetical in a venue with a fryer: a splash from a fryer basket is exactly the scenario it describes.
Eye pads get an upgrade too, though for a different reason. The Code adds them where chemical liquids or powders are handled in open containers, which in a venue is the chemical store and the dishwasher dosing line rather than the stove.
The Code's rule is access, not count. Every worker must be able to reach a kit, which means at least one per workplace, and in a multi storey building at least one kit on every second floor. In practice a venue over two levels with a basement prep area needs more than one, and the useful test is whether a person with a bleeding hand can reach it without crossing a hot line.
Mount it where it is visible and unlocked. A kit in the manager's office behind a locked door at 11pm fails the access test however complete its contents. Put a sign on the wall, put the trained people's names next to it, and check it monthly against the Appendix C list with a dated sheet. That monthly sheet is the whole compliance story and it takes five minutes.
A trained first aider is not a substitute for a safe kitchen and the Code does not pretend otherwise. Training does nothing about a fryer with no lid, a blocked walkway, or a double shift that has somebody making knife cuts at hour eleven. If your incident log shows the same injury twice, the answer is the process, not another certificate.
It also does not cover you for the thing most likely to actually happen in hospitality, which is a slip on a wet floor. Mats, footwear and a spill routine prevent more lost days than any kit treats. And it is not insurance: what a claim costs and what your cover excludes sits on our restaurant insurance page.
If you run a one person coffee cart with no cooking, you need a kit and you do not need a training budget. The Code's own test is adequacy against your actual risk, and a sole operator with an espresso machine is not the venue it has in mind when it talks about shower equipment. Buy the kit, keep it in date, and spend the training money on something that moves.
The same goes for a venue inside a food court or a shopping centre where centre management already runs a first aid room and rosters trained staff. Confirm it in writing, record that you rely on it, and do not duplicate it. The duty is to ensure access, not to own the equipment.
Where you should not economise is the number of trained people. Training is one of the few hospitality costs where the second unit is far cheaper than the first, because the course runs anyway. Our staff training page covers how to fit it around a roster, and the food safety supervisor page covers the other qualification a venue has to keep current.
The kit is the first five minutes. The notifications that follow run on their own clocks, and missing them is the expensive part. Our page on what to do when an employee is injured at work sets out who you have to tell and by when.
An incident takes your most senior person off the floor for an hour, usually in the middle of service. That is the hour the phone rings. Skai Solutions answers every call on the first ring, takes the booking and sends it through, so an afternoon spent dealing with a burn does not also cost you next Friday's covers.
If your phone mostly carries suppliers rather than bookings, a basic message taking plan is the right buy and it is not us. If it carries bookings during service, read what an AI receptionist for a restaurant actually does. Setup takes five days.
How many first aiders does a restaurant need in Australia?
The model Code of Practice sets one first aider for every 25 workers in a high risk workplace and one for every 50 in a low risk one. A commercial kitchen with fryers, flame and knives sits in the high risk bracket, so work to one per 25.
What has to be in a restaurant first aid kit?
Appendix C of the model Code of Practice lists 24 recommended items for a general kit. Where there is a burn risk the Code adds hydro gel in eight 3.5 gram sachets and clean polythene sheets in small, medium and large.
Is a first aid kit a legal requirement for a cafe?
Yes. Regulation 42 of the model WHS Regulations requires the business to provide first aid equipment, ensure every worker can access it, and provide access to facilities for administering first aid.
How many first aid kits does a venue need?
At least one, and enough that every worker can reach one. In a multi storey building the Code suggests at least one kit on every second floor. A venue over two levels with a basement prep area normally needs more than one.
Does the ratio mean one trained person per shift?
No, and this is the gap. The ratio is per worker, not per shift. A venue with 25 staff across three shifts that trains one person has a first aider present for roughly a quarter of its trading hours. Plan to one trained person rostered on every shift.
Does the Code of Practice say anything specific about hospitality?
No. The model Code gives no hospitality specific guidance at all, which is why the burn risk provisions and the high risk ratio have to be applied to a kitchen by the operator rather than looked up.