First Aid & Epilespsy

I recommend you download the leaflet for employers from the Epilepsy Action website www.epilepsy.org.uk. This should answer your questions, and would be useful for the employee's colleagues to help them understand.

Tony

Ask your employee when they return to work what they would feel comfortable with - although I am an expert with epilepsy I am not going to presume to respond to the original question as each persons condition is totally different.
On the subject of being first aid trained or not in order to support someone in a seizure my 14 year old son had no training and manages to help me out!
Yes it can be frightening and upsetting to see a seizure but jeepers these are grown ups and they really should be able to handle that - what happened to a bit of empathy cos believe me it can be a pain in the butt living with epilepsy.
Lets remember too that a colleague who shies away or talks disparagingly about a fellow employee with epilepsy (or a large number of other long term health conditions) could be concieved as discriminating - which would put them on the wrong side of the law.
Go talk to your employee but please be gentle as they may well be very stressed by a seizure having happened at work and very worried about what this may mean for their long term employment and how they are percieved and treated by colleagues - and this may well lead to further seizures as stress can be a cause.
I hope you are able to resolve it.

One other point worth considering is that if you have security guards on site its quite easy to make it part of their contract that they should be first aid trained. This way you will always have a first aider available

Stephen

All I'm saying is, a little knowledge will help those who find it upsetting, but to some of the others it will give them a bit more confidence to assist. I understand what your saying about non-first aid trained people, but you can't just leave this individual whilst they are having a fit especially if they are finding it difficult to track down a first aider.


You may also want to consider carrying out a risk assessment (or further assessment) just in case there is something within the work environment or tasking that could cause this person to have a seizure i.e flickering images, lighting etc

Many thanks for the comments - just to clarify that we have 250 employees in the buiilding (low risk office )with 6 fully qulaified first aiders. We do not work shifts just have the majority of staff working between 8.00 am - 6.00 pm.

Julian - I am waiting for the member of staff to return to work to discuss this however reagrding the awareness course there has been mixed response on whether a non-first aid trained person should get involved.

one suggestion could be is.......have you spoken to the person who suffers from epilepsy about how best to handle it should they have a siezure. I am sure you will find they are helpful and quite willing to share this information with their colleagues. This will make them all feel more comfortable and able to deal with it should it happen again.
In addition you may want to check if you have adequate first aid cover as your note sounds like you only have one, therefore no absence cover should first aid be required.

In my organisation our policy says there must be a first aider to cover all shifts. I don't know how many members of staff you have in your organisation, you may need to review your policy how it covers the shifts when it comes to FAW.

joe

Dear All,

I am looking for some advice on the followoing:
We have a member of staff who sufferes from epilespsy and recently had a siezure whilst in the office. We had a first aider in the location who responded quickly to assist the member of staff.

As the siezure took place in an open plan office other members of staff were quite taken aback as they had not seen a siezure before and then when the member of staff came round there was confusion from the rest of the staff as to what they should do - if anything as the first aider was on site.

The question I have is - if the first aider was not in the room at the time there could have been a lot of confusion as to what to do! I know that there are courses available on Epilepsy Awareness and what to do, however I am unsure as to whether I should ask that staff undertake this course. As epilepsy comes under DDA is there any issues here that I should be aware of?

Any advice woudl be greatly appreciated.

Stephen