Best First Aid Kits (2026)

A first aid kit is one of the few things in the van you hope never to open, which is why most of them are out of date and missing the gloves. Buying the right size and the right standard is the easy part. Here is what the standards mean and what should actually be inside.

Two British Standards

BS 8599-1 is the British Standard for workplace first aid kits and comes in small, medium and large, plus a travel kit. BS 8599-2 is the separate standard for vehicle first aid kits, again in small, medium and large, sized by how many people the vehicle carries: small for one to three occupants, medium for four to eight, large for nine to sixteen. Workplace kit sizes go by headcount and hazard: in a low-hazard workplace such as an office, a small kit covers up to 25 people, a medium 25 to 100 and a large over 100. In a higher-hazard workplace like a construction site or a workshop, the thresholds drop to fewer than 5, 5 to 25, and over 25. Most kits sold as van kits, including the Reliance Medical BS8599-1 Stockholm Bag First Aid Kit (around £25), are small BS 8599-1 workplace kits in a soft bag rather than kits marked to the vehicle standard. For a sole trader that is fine. If a fleet policy or a client audit asks specifically for BS 8599-2, check the listing for that mark.

What should be inside

A BS 8599-1 kit contains a guidance leaflet, sterile dressings in medium and large sizes, triangular bandages, an eye pad dressing, assorted plasters, sterile cleansing wipes, microporous tape, nitrile gloves, a face shield for resuscitation, a foil blanket, burn dressings, clothing shears, conforming bandages and finger dressings; quantities scale with the size. The burn dressings, shears and foil blanket are what the older HSE minimum list left out, and they matter on site. The Reliance Medical HSE 20 Person Workplace First Aid Kit (around £19) is that older HSE-list kit, cheap and legitimate for an office or workshop but thin for site or vehicle use. The Qualicare 138-Piece BS8599 Workplace First Aid Kit (around £35) goes the other way with more of everything, at the cost of items expiring unused.

Is it legally required?

In a private car or van in the UK there is no legal requirement to carry a first aid kit. On a construction site the picture changes: the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations require employers to provide adequate first aid equipment, facilities and people based on a needs assessment, and the principal contractor on a CDM site usually sets what that looks like. HSE guidance does not mandate BS 8599, but it accepts kits to the standard as a straightforward way of meeting the requirement, and most site inductions and fleet policies expect one in every van. Our construction site first aid rules post covers the current edition of the standard. For what to keep in the van, use the trade van first aid checklist. Rules and editions change; check current HSE guidance rather than relying on a listing.

Site kits

A wall-mounted first aid point suits a site cabin, workshop or depot. The Reliance Medical BS8599-1 Medium Workplace First Aid Kit (around £30), Astroplast Mezzo First Aid Kit 20 Person (around £25), EVAQ8 British Standard Workplace First Aid Kit in Deluxe Box (around £25) and the BSI Workplace First Aid Kit Small BS-8599 (around £17) are all of that type. For a big site the Safety First Aid BS8599 Large Comprehensive First Aid Point (around £60) is the large kit. None of them is meant to be carried to a casualty across a muddy site, which is what the EVAQ8 First Response First Aid Kit in Red Rucksack (around £45) is for: a kit on your back with both hands free. Dusty sites also need eye wash, which no standard kit includes, so budget for eye wash pods separately.

Keeping it useful

Dressings, wipes and burn gels carry expiry dates and the first ones go within a couple of years. Put a date check on the same calendar as the van's MOT. Restock from refill packs rather than raiding it for plasters; Reliance Medical refills are the easiest to find in the UK. The cheapest option, the Safety First Aid Economy BS8599 Small First Aid Kit (around £13), is a perfectly good small kit for a van, and its economy case is fine as long as it lives in a door pocket rather than under the tools.