There is no single number. Alberta’s first aid requirement is not a fixed count of certified people or a standard kit that rides in every truck. It is calculated from three things — the hazard level of the work, the number of workers on a shift, and how long it takes to get an injured worker to a health care facility. Change any one of those and the requirement changes with it.
That last input is the one that catches builders. A crew pouring a basement in Killarney and the same crew pouring a shop slab west of Cochrane are covered by different rows of the same schedule, on the same week, with the same people and the same equipment. The law did not change between Monday and Tuesday. The drive to the hospital did.
After 38 years pouring concrete around Calgary, we plan first aid the way we plan a pump: as a line item that belongs on the pre-pour checklist for that specific address, not as a binder item someone signed off on in February.
The three inputs that pick your row
Section 178 of Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Code requires an employer to provide first aid services, supplies and equipment that meet the tables in Schedule 2 of the Code. Those tables are indexed by three variables:
- Hazard level of the work — low, moderate or high. Concrete construction sits at the high end of that scale, and that is where most of our industry’s rows land.
- Number of workers on the shift. Not the project headcount, not the payroll. The number on that shift.
- Travel time to the nearest health care facility, which the Code sorts into three categories.
Get those three right and the schedule tells you the rest: how many designated first aiders, what level of certificate they hold, which kit has to be on site, and whether you also need blankets, a stretcher, a designated area or a first aid room.
Get one wrong and everything downstream is wrong, which is why we treat the three inputs as a short conversation at scheduling rather than a form at the end.
Travel time is measured from the pour, not from your office
The Code classifies a work site by how long it takes to reach care under normal conditions:
| Classification | Travel time to the nearest health care facility |
|---|---|
| Close work site | Less than 20 minutes |
| Distant work site | 20 to 40 minutes |
| Isolated work site | More than 40 minutes |
Three buckets, two thresholds, and both thresholds sit inside the driving radius most Calgary contractors work every week. An infill lot ten minutes from a hospital is a close work site. An acreage build past the city limits, or a rural shop slab, can be distant or isolated depending on the road and the season — and the coverage required at that address is higher than the coverage required downtown.
Two practical notes we have learned to write into the schedule rather than discover on site:
“Under normal conditions” is not the same as “on a map.” The number that matters is the realistic drive with a loaded truck in the actual weather, not the optimistic route estimate. A March morning on a gravel approach is not a July afternoon.
Section 180 is the other half of the same question. It requires the employer to have a means of communication at the work site that allows an ambulance or other transportation to be summoned, and to ensure transportation is available to move an injured or ill worker to a health care facility when needed. The guidance frames the benchmark as provincial ambulance service being able to arrive within 40 minutes; where it cannot, the employer has to arrange alternative transport that meets a set of specified requirements. On a remote pour, that is a decision made in advance, with a vehicle and a driver assigned — not a phone call made after the injury.
If you are pricing a build outside the city, that logistics tail belongs in the estimate. We covered the rest of that tail in our piece on the hidden site costs of an acreage build.
Crew size is counted per shift, and pour day is the spike
Most of a concrete schedule runs lean. Excavation and forming can be a handful of people for days. Then pour day arrives and the same slab has the placing crew, the finishers, the pump operator, the rebar crew and the testing technician standing on it at once.
Because the requirement scales with the number of workers on the shift, the first aid coverage that was correct all week may not be correct on the day the crew triples. A 90 cubic metre footing pour is a different staffing picture than the two days of forming that led up to it.
One clarification that saves arguments on multi-trade sites: the first aid duty in Part 11 belongs to the employer, for that employer’s own workers. It is not automatically satisfied because another company on the site brought a certified first aider. Whether and how employers share coverage is a coordination decision that has to be made and documented deliberately, and it is separate from the site-wide designation questions that sit with the prime contractor.
What changed on March 31, 2023
If your safety manual still lists a “Type P kit,” an “Alberta No. 2” or an “Alberta No. 3,” it is describing designations that no longer exist. Alberta’s 2023 OHS Code changes came into force on March 31, 2023, and they realigned Part 11 with two national standards:
| Item | Before | Current |
|---|---|---|
| First aid training levels | Emergency, Standard, Advanced | CSA Z1210-17: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced |
| First aid kits | Type P, Alberta No. 2, Alberta No. 3 | CSA Z1220-17: Type 1, Type 2, Type 3 |
The mapping is straightforward: Emergency First Aid became Basic First Aid, Standard First Aid became Intermediate First Aid, and Advanced kept its name. On the equipment side, CSA Z1220-17 sets out Type 1 for personal first aid, Type 2 for basic first aid, and Type 3 for intermediate first aid in higher-risk environments, with Types 2 and 3 available in small, medium and large sizes.
Two things follow for a builder. First, a certificate is not generic — the schedule calls for a named level, and a Basic card does not fill a row that asks for Intermediate. Second, buying a kit labelled with an old Alberta designation does not put you in compliance with a table that now references CSA types. This is the kind of paperwork drift that only surfaces during an inspection or, worse, during an injury.
Alberta’s career information service maintains a plain summary of what each workplace first aider certification covers, which is useful when you are checking what a new hire actually holds.
The rest of Part 11, in one table
The kit and the headcount get the attention. These sections are where sites more often fall short.
| Section | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 177 | The employer ensures anyone designated to provide first aid is appropriately trained |
| 179 | First aid services, equipment and supplies are quickly and easily accessible during all working hours |
| 180 | A means of communication to summon an ambulance, and transportation available to move an injured worker |
| 181 | The first aid provider’s other assigned work must not conflict with their first aid duties, and must allow them to remain fit and clean |
| 182 | Workers report a work-related injury or sudden illness as soon as practicable |
| 183 | The employer keeps a written record of injuries and illnesses, retained at least three years |
Section 181 is worth reading twice on a concrete site. If your designated first aider is the finisher who is knee-deep in a slab with a power trowel running, you have satisfied the certificate requirement and failed the availability requirement. “Fit and clean” is not a courtesy — it is the condition that makes the designation real. On our own crews, the designation goes to someone whose task can be dropped mid-motion.
Section 179 has a similar trap. A kit locked in a truck that left for the next site is not quickly and easily accessible. Neither is a kit at the trailer when the crew is working the far end of a long pour.
The lone finisher, and Part 28
The other requirement that concrete work walks into regularly is working alone. Under section 393(1), a worker is working alone when they are working by themselves and assistance is not readily available if there is an emergency or they are injured or ill. That describes the person who comes back at six in the morning to saw-cut joints, the one who stays late to strip forms, and the one sent out alone to check a cure on a Sunday.
When that applies, section 393(2) requires a hazard assessment, documented in writing, and section 394(1) requires an effective communication system that lets the worker signal for help — portable two-way radio, telephone, cellular phone, satellite phone or personal alarm — with contact initiated by the employer or a designate at intervals appropriate to the nature of the hazard. Where no effective means of communication exists, section 394(2) allows a system of visiting the worker or scheduling check-ins instead, at a frequency set by the hazard assessment.
The operative word in both is intervals. A cell phone in a pocket is not a system. A named person, a set check-in time and someone who notices when the check-in does not come is a system.
Where this page stops
This page covers first aid coverage, access and records under Part 11, plus the working alone requirements of Part 28. It does not cover respiratory hazards from cutting or coring, vibration exposure from breakers and saws, excavation protection before the pour, or the statutory role questions that decide who holds site-wide designations. Those are separate obligations with their own sections, and none of them are satisfied by a good first aid plan.
It also does not reproduce the Schedule 2 tables. Those tables are the legal source, they are indexed by all three inputs at once, and they were revised in 2023 — read them directly for your crew rather than from a chart of unknown vintage.
FAQ
How many first aiders does a construction site in Alberta need? It depends on the hazard level of the work, the number of workers on the shift and the travel time to the nearest health care facility. Those three inputs point to a row in Schedule 2 of the OHS Code, which sets the number of first aiders, the certificate level and the required kit.
What counts as a distant work site in Alberta? A site where travel time to the nearest health care facility is 20 to 40 minutes. Under 20 minutes is a close work site; over 40 minutes is isolated.
Do the old Alberta first aid kit designations still apply? No. As of March 31, 2023, Type P, Alberta No. 2 and Alberta No. 3 were replaced by CSA Z1220-17 Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 kits, and training levels were realigned to CSA Z1210-17 as Basic, Intermediate and Advanced.
Can the same person be the finisher and the designated first aider? Only if the assigned work does not conflict with their first aid duties and allows them to remain fit and clean, as section 181 requires. A worker committed to a task they cannot leave is not available.
How long do first aid records have to be kept? The written record of a work-related injury or sudden illness must be retained for at least three years from the date it occurred.
Does a subcontractor rely on the general contractor’s first aider? Not automatically. The Part 11 duty sits with the employer for its own workers. Shared coverage on a multi-employer site has to be arranged and documented on purpose.
Planning a pour outside the city?
Coverage, communication and transport are easier to solve at scheduling than at seven in the morning with a truck on the way. Across 52,000+ projects, the pours that went smoothly were the ones where the site-specific questions were answered before the concrete was ordered.
If you are a builder or general contractor lining up foundations, flatwork or structural work in the Calgary area — in the city or well outside it — talk to our team about commercial concrete in Calgary and we will walk the site logistics with you before the schedule is locked. If you are still evaluating crews, our guide to EMR, COR and vetting a foundation crew covers what to ask before you sign.
Sources
- Government of Alberta, OHS Code Explanation Guide, Part 11 First Aid: https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/757fed78-8793-40bb-a920-6f000853172b/resource/05b9b5fc-4aa2-48f5-b5d5-ed11d7c34f68/download/4403880-part-11-first-aid.pdf
- Government of Alberta, OHS Code Explanation Guide, Part 28 Working Alone: https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/757fed78-8793-40bb-a920-6f000853172b/resource/8a7a2cf9-b223-4427-80ec-2f67416d2bb6/download/4403880-part-28-working-alone.pdf
- Alberta OHS Legislation, Occupational Health and Safety Code, Schedule 2 First Aid: https://search-ohs-laws.alberta.ca/legislation/occupational-health-and-safety-code/schedule-2-first-aid/
- Alberta alis, Workplace First Aider certifications in Alberta: https://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/certifications-in-alberta/workplace-first-aider/