First aid kits for food preparation

When we are working in a kitchen environment, we still have to abide by the First Aid at Work Regulations, but there are slightly different first aid kits that you have in the kitchen. Conventional kits within first aid are often green in colour. But you would also have blue sets for kitchens, and the main difference would be the dressings would be blue. The reason for this is they stand out a lot more. In conventional first aid, we would be looking at a dressing the blends in well, so people cannot see it, that are often skin type colours, whereas food preparation, we want the plaster to stick out well, so if we put a plaster on and that plaster did fall off, then it could be easily identified in the food. It is not something that is going to blend in with the food, and there is not many foods that are blue in colour. So, when we are looking at plasters, we may well have a plaster box and in here there will be different sorts of shapes and sizes of plaster.

What we need to do with it, is take the plaster out. And then you can open it up on the end, peel it apart. Once the plaster is out, then they are blue in colour. Now, some of them also have a foil layer in there. The reason we have metal inside the plaster is just in case a plaster did get into food production within a factory environment, a metal detector could detect that and set off alarms, so, therefore, the line can be stopped and the food removed and any other contaminates could be dealt with at that point. So the plasters themselves are very obvious. There are different types, this one is for a larger cut. We then have another plaster type here, which is what we would put over the end of a finger. So with this one, if you have got a cut on the end of the finger it can go over and then these tails can be used to wrap around the finger to keep the plaster in place. And then others in different shapes that we have for smaller areas or larger areas, depending on what the actual wound is, we will use a different type of plaster.

Now, in your first aid kit there should be plasters within the main kit, but as I have said, also you often have a separate plaster box. The reason for this is obviously risk of blood being transferred between the two. The other thing is, if you have cut yourself, then you need to be really, really careful of where you have cut yourself. So, supposing you are in the kitchen here, we have cut ourselves, there is going to be blood on the surfaces. Potentially blood on the floor, on clothing, on the person who has helped you, or maybe on the actual food that you are preparing. So you need to make sure that you isolate and destroy the food, dispose of it correctly, effectively clean, stopping production at that time, because it is a factory, you may need to completely stop the production line so you can isolate the area that could potentially be infected, and then move the person away as well so you would then get the plasters on later on.

Plasters are also used if you have got recent piercings or any other problems you may well have to cover those up, but you need to talk to your employer about their rules and regulations within piercings, within cuts and also whether you are even fit for work if you have got a cut on your hand or your face.