Buy or build a Home First Aid Kit

[jennyjj01]

Inspired by this...

https://www.screwfix.com/p/wallace-came ... dium/1708f

Or get a refill kit for a general kit

https://www.screwfix.com/p/wallace-came ... dium/27482

This got me looking again at a first aid kit for the home. Damn, it's a money pit. Each kit either seems to lack something essential or contain a bunch of stuff you can't expect to use. And to assemble your own kit from ingredients also seems expensive if less wasteful. Most kits just seem physically too small. Travel kits fine for travel, but for the home I want something at least a foot square.

I was drawn to this great big first responder kit (37cm by 38cm) from screwfix at 30 quid. Sold other places for £60 or even £90. But what were they thinking giving two bottles of eyewash and 6 eyepads? Looks like high margin price gouging. It's like those packs of assorted sticky plasters where they just have a couple of the size you need and lots you'll never use.

Next up I looked to save money at toolstation, usually cheaper like for like..
Toolstation's kit at £25 skipped the eyewash and seemed a bit skimpy. Basically an expensive hard box.

I almost settled on this as my basis...
Big kit from Amazon for £15
Perfect size for the 30cm kitchen cupboard. Heck, £15 could barely buy the case.
Looked at first to be great value. BUT.... Damn it, the reviews!!! Seems that many of these come loaded with out of date dressings!!!!! I can't see BBE dates as being mission critical, but if sticky plasters don't stick, cooling pads don't cool and rubber gloves perish, this could prove really bad value. Hmmmf!!!

Back to the drawing board!

Anyway.... Tomorrow, I'm going to research this properly. Here's something that will guide me as to what components to look for...

http://www.reliancemedical.co.uk/wp-con ... elines.pdf

I might still buy one of those amazon kits and just chuck out expiring plasters. Let's see what I can assemble.

Maybe its a Health and safety restrictions, but I note these kits lack the stuff we used to have back in the last century: Antiseptic cream? a few pain killer tablets? In they will be going.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Inspired by this...

https://www.screwfix.com/p/wallace-came ... dium/1708f

Or get a refill kit for a general kit

https://www.screwfix.com/p/wallace-came ... dium/27482

This got me looking again at a first aid kit for the home. Damn, it's a money pit. Each kit either seems to lack something essential or contain a bunch of stuff you can't expect to use. And to assemble your own kit from ingredients also seems expensive if less wasteful. Most kits just seem physically too small. Travel kits fine for travel, but for the home I want something at least a foot square.

I was drawn to this great big first responder kit (37cm by 38cm) from screwfix at 30 quid. Sold other places for £60 or even £90. But what were they thinking giving two bottles of eyewash and 6 eyepads? Looks like high margin price gouging. It's like those packs of assorted sticky plasters where they just have a couple of the size you need and lots you'll never use.

Next up I looked to save money at toolstation, usually cheaper like for like..
Toolstation's kit at £25 skipped the eyewash and seemed a bit skimpy. Basically an expensive hard box.

I almost settled on this as my basis...
Big kit from Amazon for £15
Perfect size for the 30cm kitchen cupboard. Heck, £15 could barely buy the case.
Looked at first to be great value. BUT.... Damn it, the reviews!!! Seems that many of these come loaded with out of date dressings!!!!! I can't see BBE dates as being mission critical, but if sticky plasters don't stick, cooling pads don't cool and rubber gloves perish, this could prove really bad value. Hmmmf!!!

Back to the drawing board!

Anyway.... Tomorrow, I'm going to research this properly. Here's something that will guide me as to what components to look for...

http://www.reliancemedical.co.uk/wp-con ... elines.pdf

I might still buy one of those amazon kits and just chuck out expiring plasters. Let's see what I can assemble.

Maybe its a Health and safety restrictions, but I note these kits lack the stuff we used to have back in the last century: Antiseptic cream? a few pain killer tablets? In they will be going.

The 2 bottles of eyewash satisfy the first aid at work regs where no fresh running water is available (1l of eye wash) same with the 6 eye pads in a low risk setting it's good for 50 to 100 staff members allowing for partial use and pilferage in a general environment.. in heavy industry the addition of field/ trauma dressings / cats / celox aka hemostatic gauze / AEDs are getting more common

To be fair the newer British standard kits are a blooming good starting point to build on as a first aider at work they are good for what a first aider is legally allowed to do..... At work .....

As a first aider at work your not a pharmacy or allowed to give medications (exception been a eppi pen ) even a asthma sufferer I can't ram a ventolin inhaler into your cake hole and tell you to suck .... But I can put one Infront of you on a desk and if you pick it up and take 2 puff's that's your call likewise suspect heart attack.. "there's 2 aspirin here if you want to chew them slowly that's upto you unless your allergic to aspirin?!"

Even hospitals do not usually apply topical ointments such as savlon anymore as it's cytotoxic which can prolong healing but a saline rinse with that eyewash
huge 500ml bottle won't do any harm and promote a speedy recovery

As for out of date stuff home use probably fine if you want none sticky plasters dry saline wipes and rotten elastic bandages. But again at work they get binned as we can't provide proof it's still sterile or will work but then we will be covered by employers liability insurance if we stay above board....


Remember been sat in hospital having got acid in my eye..... Was left in a chair in the eye room sat there bored out of my tree spotted a tray of out of date lotions and drops .. some higher ranking nurse wandered in to check on me and I had a polite quiet word about the dates.. she thanked me. Promptly slung the lot in the yellow bin then you could hear her going ballistic at the nurses station about who ever had signed the sheet for the past month or so saying that the rooms were fully stocked and ready to use

The basic mantra of first aid is based on the 3p's

Prevent a injury getting worse
Promote a speedy recovery
Preserve life

So whacking a old dressing on could introduce bacteria into a wound causing an infection which could cause a injury to get worse.. prolonging recovery and end game if it's a major infection cause life treating septicemia...

Again what you do to yourself and immediate family at home is different to what I would do at work... Little man likes his magic cream (savlon) and last time I cut myself down the allotment I cleaned it with neat TCP... Or if your not the Minor injuries center nurse jeyes fluid

[Yorkshire Andy]

As for a home kit go to home bargains and grab a cheap plastic tub that will fit in your cupboard

Depending on your personal situation depends on your kit...

And where to store it I've got a big kit in the cupboard under the stairs. A big ISH kit in the workshop and a small one upstairs .. why? The wife will go mad if I get blood on the carpet


As for kit it's personal taste and based on your own "risk assessment". Why ... Well I've got an allotment so have a host of rather lethal tools like a chain saw so I've factored in for potential catastrophic bleeding from said items...

So my basic list I'll probably miss some things but:

Celox gauze, 2x CAT Tourniquets, selection of trauma dressings and gauze all In a rip away pouch .. that's
my major bleeding kit ... If your going to buy one trauma dressing get a Oales modular bandage.... Why? It's very versatile ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3J9s69UZsE


For day to day stuff and kids...

Plasters lots of plasters
Normal wound bandages medium and large
Burns dressings
Steri strips
Micropore tape 1cm for taping broken fingers 2cm for securing dressings and some 100mm for making huge plasters with the next item :
Wound pads
Few triangle bandages
Sam splint
Few foil blankets (that said at home a duvet will do the trick)
Little eye wash vials
Vet wrap bandages




Then onto medicines / lotions depending on your personal circumstances / allergies / obviously it can be bad to mix medications eg paracetamol and cold and flu stuff etc

Paracetamol
Iboprophen (spl)
Co codamol
Cold and flu stuff
Antihistamines tablets and cream
Clove oil
Dental repair kit
Savlon or similar
Bonjella
Imodium
Moisturiser and lip balm
Cough mixture
Throat lozenges
Indigestion stuff both tablets and liquid chalk
Medicated mouth wash
Stuff to treat bits hanging out your backside if affected
Rehydration salts
Deep heat


Kids stuff

CALPOL!
kids iboprophen
Kids antihistamine
Head lice lotion
Kids cough mixture
Wet wipes
Bum cream (if little)
Gripe water again if little
Vicks vapour rub and olbas oil

[jennyjj01]

...Next up I looked to save money ,...

I was misguided

...I almost settled on this as my basis...
Big kit from Amazon for £15
Perfect size for the 30cm kitchen cupboard. Heck, £15 could barely buy the case.
Looked at first to be great value. BUT.... Damn it, the reviews!!! Seems that many of these come loaded with out of date dressings!!!!! I can't see BBE dates as being mission critical, but if sticky plasters don't stick, cooling pads don't cool and rubber gloves perish, this could prove really bad value. Hmmmf!!!

Yorkshire Andy has shown me the error of my ways

Back to the drawing board!

Again what you do to yourself and immediate family at home is different to what I would do at work... Little man likes his magic cream (savlon) and last time I cut myself down the allotment I cleaned it with neat TCP... Or if your not the Minor injuries center nurse jeyes fluid*

Cheers YorkshireAndy,
Good points well made. I'd already acknowledged the likely failings of plasters and gloves and of course I understand the reasoning for no meds in a non-home environment. I've already experienced useless cheap plasters from sh1t shops. Even popular branded ones can be rubbish.

I'm now inclined to bite the bullet and pay a decent amount for a decent kit. I might add in some imodium and dioralyte to treat the food poisoning when i serve up out of date food. And some other mind altering meds for me

I've decided that I'm NOT going to scrimp at all on quality Just look for the right product first and then do some price matching. That's all for now.

*Jeyes fluid. LMAO

[jennyjj01]

As for a home kit go to home bargains and grab a cheap plastic tub that will fit in your cupboard

Depending on your personal situation depends on your kit...

And where to store it I've got a big kit in the cupboard under the stairs. A big ISH kit in the workshop and a small one upstairs .. why? The wife will go mad if I get blood on the carpet


As for kit it's personal taste and based on your own "risk assessment". Why ... Well I've got an allotment so have a host of rather lethal tools like a chain saw so I've factored in for potential catastrophic bleeding from said items...

So my basic list I'll probably miss some things but:
.......

Yorkshire Andy
You are an absolute 6l00dy star!. You've done nearly all the work for me.
Some inspiration there... e.g Tooth repair kit and clove oil.

I can see this exercise costing far more that I'd ever imagined. But as it should be.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Yorkshire Andy
You are an absolute 6l00dy star!. You've done nearly all the work for me.
Some inspiration there... e.g Tooth repair kit and clove oil.

I can see this exercise costing far more that I'd ever imagined. But as it should be.

Bit at a time
A bottle of clove oil is from memory 99p in home bargains little glass bottle. Apply with a cotton ear bud it tastes awful but it works for short term pain relief on a bad tooth

Emergency Repair kits start at £5 ISH few different ones on the market read some reviews before buying


https://lloydspharmacy.com/products/den ... F8EALw_wcB




Forgot to mention the thermometer (which got silly expensive last year due to the virus panic)

Pulse oximeter ( got shown by the paramedic how to disprove covid over the normal flu when they attended the wife a month ago... Clip on oximeter .. take reading.. hers was about 95% at rest... Then stand up sit down for 60 seconds if you can last that long her O2 went up to 99% = lungs working not Rona if it had been Rona apparently the O2 would go down as the lungs can't strip enough oxygen out of the air ) also handy for chest infections I got told to get one years ago when I had a bad chest infection to keep an eye on myself at home

And blood pressure cuff (I've got high BP)

[jennyjj01]

Thanks,

The plan is coming together.

I have thermometer(s), oximeter, clove oil and tooth repair kit, somewhere. Just a matter of locating the darned things.

In fact, like most homes, we have a mix and match of dodgy first aid stuff, but it definitely needs sorting to one or two proper locations. I'm tending towards dividing a large kit between kitchen and garage/workshop with minimal box of plasters and creams in the bathroom cabinet.
Seems overkill to have some of the duplicates like slings and saline all in the same place. So purchasing one large green box, split some of it to a biscuit tin or drill box in the garage, then top up the green box with the meds and extras.

We seem to spend enough time in A&E to get an invitation to their staff Christmas parties

[ForgeCorvus]

Good quality Tweezers (as big as you can manage, pointy for preference ) and a magnifying lens, the number of times I haven't had to go to A&E because I've had these.

I carry a First Field Dressing in my bag and have more down in the work shed (reminds me, need to reassemble my car kit). I hope I never need to use one but seeing as they've got a pad the size of a side-plate, they should be good for anything short of a mid-thigh amputation.

[jansman]

Kit is good, and necessary. First aid training is better though. Accepted wisdom, such as triangular bandages are old news for instance. If someone has a broken arm, or sprain, the last thing you do is hoist their arm in a sling! Many first aid kits fail to adapt to modern training and thinking.

ABC. AIRWAY, BREATHING, CIRCULATION. If you have training to resuscitate, deal with a cardiac or seizure, or bleeding, you are good to go. It doesn’t take that much kit to deal with it - more knowledge- until proper medics attend.

[Arzosah]

Amazing stuff!

I have quite a few bits in my first aid kit that possibly don't quite belong there - insect repellent, glycerine and nit combs spring to mind One of the very few actual "prep" items that I've used are the tiny wee screwdrivers you can/ could buy on Amazon for about 14p, the ones that mend glasses and sunglasses when they fall apart. My sister's fell apart on holiday, and my ownership of said wee screwdriver saved us a 20 mile trip to the nearest optician, and probably a 3 hour wait too.

I have a lot of dressings and bandages - again, from experience, after I had a minor op at my GP surgery, realising how often the dressing needed changing.

When Christmas was cancelled last year, I got a bit concerned about living on my own in a town where I didn't really know anyone, and bought a couple of oximeters (but I haven't got them out of the bag to learn how to run them).

Forge Corvus' point about tweezers is good - I also have some tick tweezers, which have a 90 degree bend at the business end.

I'm utterly remiss on the training but I'll at least try to do an inventory - between them, Jenny and Yorkshire Andy have got me going