Emergency medical teams attend an average of around 90 farming-related incidents each year in Wales, according to a new Farming Connect training initiative.
The incidents attended by Wales Air Ambulance and the Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service include vehicle accidents, crush injuries, livestock-related injuries and cardiac arrests. In response, the Wales Farm Safety Partnership and EMRTS are running eight free “Tractors and Trauma” workshops across four Welsh venues from 15 October to 17 November 2026.
The sessions will use realistic farm scenarios to cover CPR and basic life support, life-threatening bleeding, crush injuries, burns and remote-location emergencies. Eligible attendance can count towards the Sustainable Farming Scheme’s Universal Action 4 continuing professional development requirement.
This is a Welsh programme, but the prompt is relevant across the UK. Provisional Health and Safety Executive figures show that 22 workers and seven members of the public died in work-related incidents in agriculture, forestry and fishing in Great Britain during 2025/26. The sector’s worker fatal-injury rate was around 21 times the all-industry average.
Training cannot remove hazards or replace safe systems of work. It can, however, improve the response when prevention fails. Use these seven checks to test whether your farm is ready.
1. Train for the emergencies your farm could face
A generic certificate is not the same as confidence in a field, yard, workshop or livestock building. Start with the hazards in your own risk assessments and incident history.
Consider vehicle collisions, overturns, entanglement, crushing, falls, burns, chemicals, animals and sudden illness. Then choose competent training that reflects those risks and the time emergency services may need to reach you.
Farmers and workers in Wales can review the free Tractors and Trauma dates at Llysfasi College, Llanfarian, Builth Wells and Carmarthen. Elsewhere, use the same principle: ask a prospective trainer how the course addresses agricultural work, remote locations and your first-aid needs assessment.
Cover holidays, sickness, seasonal labour, contractors and out-of-hours work.
2. Revisit the first-aid needs assessment
HSE says first-aid arrangements must be adequate and appropriate for the circumstances. The assessment should consider the work, hazards, workforce, shift patterns and previous incidents. Travelling, remote and lone workers—and the distance from emergency medical services—may require additional provision.
Walk through real tasks rather than completing the assessment from a desk. Ask where people actually work, how they communicate and what changes during harvest, lambing, slurry work, maintenance or contractor visits.
The result should identify trained people, equipment, locations, checks and cover arrangements—and explain them to everyone on the farm.
3. Make the location easy to communicate
“The back field” is clear to the people who work there every day but not to a call handler or responding crew.
Prepare a simple emergency-location sheet for the farmhouse, office, workshop and regularly used vehicles. Include the postal address, accurate access point, postcode, grid reference or another recognised location reference, gate instructions, overhead-line or livestock hazards, and the name of the person meeting the emergency services.
Check mobile coverage across the holding. Where coverage is unreliable, decide what alternative communication is available. A location app can help, but it should not be the only record and staff must know how to use it before an incident.
Test the instructions by giving them to somebody unfamiliar with the farm and asking them to find the correct entrance.
4. Build a lone-worker escalation process
HSE advises employers to put emergency procedures in place for lone workers and train them to use those procedures. Depending on the risk, workers may need first-aid equipment, appropriate training and a reliable way to contact the business.
Agree check-in times for higher-risk or remote work and define what happens after a missed check. The escalation process should say who calls, how quickly they act and what location information they provide. It must work when the usual manager is away.
A phone left inside the cab may be unreachable after a fall. Consider how the person will carry it and whether the method works in the actual location.
5. Put suitable equipment where work happens
One first-aid box in the farmhouse may not be adequate for mobile or remote work. HSE’s Farmwise guidance specifically says that agricultural work can be remote from medical services and advises travelling first-aid kits on tractors or for particularly hazardous tasks where the assessment identifies that need.
Do not choose a kit on item count alone. Match its contents to the risk assessment and the competence of the people expected to use it. Record the kit’s location, seal or stock check, sterile-item expiry dates and the person responsible for replacement.
Keep equipment clean, dry, visible and quickly accessible. A locked vehicle is not useful if the only key is with the injured person.
6. Prevent a second casualty
The urge to rush in is understandable, but an unplanned rescue can expose another person to moving machinery, unstable loads, livestock, electricity, fumes or slurry gases.
Your emergency plan should identify which equipment can be isolated, who is competent to do it and when nobody should enter until specialist help arrives. Never improvise entry into a confined space or approach live electrical equipment.
First-aid training should sit alongside prevention: safe stop procedures, maintained guards, traffic segregation, restraint systems and rules for working at height. Readiness after an incident is not permission to accept avoidable risk beforehand.
7. Rehearse, record and improve
Run a short exercise using a plausible scenario. Can the first person on scene raise the alarm, give the location and find the right equipment? Can somebody meet an ambulance without abandoning another essential role? Can the team account for contractors and visitors?
Record gaps without blame. Common findings include expired supplies, blocked access, poor signal, an old contact list or uncertainty about who takes charge.
After a real incident or near miss, preserve the facts, support those involved and review the plan. Certain injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences may be reportable under RIDDOR, so obtain competent advice rather than assuming that an accident-book entry is enough.
Turn today’s warning into a practical check
The figure of 90 incidents is an average for the Welsh emergency teams involved; it is not a prediction for an individual farm or a complete count of every agricultural accident. Its value is as a prompt.
Book appropriate training, review the needs assessment, make the location easy to communicate and check equipment where the work is actually done. If you are considering a vehicle-based emergency kit, compare the Farm Packs emergency-kit range with your own assessment and verify the contents, standards, expiry information and suitability before purchase.
The strongest emergency plan is not the thickest folder. It is one that people can remember and use during the first stressful minutes—while professional help is already on its way.
This article provides general information, not medical, legal or site-specific safety advice. Follow current emergency-service instructions, HSE guidance, competent training and your own risk assessment.
Sources
Farming Connect: “When every second counts: Practical first aid for farmers” — 7 October 2026
FarmingUK: “90 farm emergencies a year spark life-saving training drive in Wales” — 8 October 2026
Health and Safety Executive: “HSE backs Farm Safety Week amid concern for children and older workers on Britain’s farms” — 20 July 2026
Health and Safety Executive: “Assess your first aid needs” — accessed 8 October 2026
