How to Build a Bleed Control Station for Your Australian Workplace

Uncontrolled haemorrhage remains one of the most preventable causes of death following traumatic injury, and the gap between injury and definitive care is exactly where a workplace bleed control station earns its place. Whether your site is a warehouse, a construction yard, a school, a manufacturing floor, or a busy retail centre, the minutes before an ambulance arrives are the minutes that matter most. A well-designed bleed control station, backed by trained staff, can be the difference between a survivable injury and a preventable death.

Australian workplaces are increasingly following the lead of international Stop the Bleed style programs, which have demonstrated that laypeople with brief training and the right equipment can control life-threatening hemorrhage effectively. Placement, quantity, signage, and stocking are not arbitrary decisions. There is a growing body of simulation research and implementation guidance that tells us where kits work best, how many are needed, and what should be inside them.

This guide walks through the evidence-based approach to designing a bleed control station for an Australian workplace: how to conduct a hazard assessment, where to place your equipment relative to exits and other emergency gear, what should go inside the cabinet, how to train your people, and how to keep the whole system maintained so it is ready the one day it is needed.

Why Bleed Control Stations Matter in the Workplace

Traumatic injury remains a leading cause of death in people under 44, and a substantial proportion of those deaths are due to bleeding that could have been controlled with early intervention (JACEP Open). Ambulance response times vary considerably depending on location, time of day, and system load, and in a workplace with moving machinery, sharp tools, vehicles, or simply a lot of people in a large footprint, the interval between injury and paramedic arrival is exactly when a trained bystander with the right equipment can prevent exsanguination.

The Stop the Bleed movement, which originated in the United States following mass casualty events, has generated a substantial evidence base on how public access bleeding control programs should be designed. While Australia does not yet have a single national mandate equivalent to some overseas AED placement laws, the underlying clinical logic transfers directly: hazard assessment, strategic placement, adequate quantity, accessible signage, and trained responders combine to save lives.

For workplaces already running AED programs, cardiac arrest and severe bleeding are addressed by the same broad philosophy: put the equipment where people are, make it fast to find, and make sure someone knows how to use it before the ambulance arrives.

Step 1: Conduct a Hazard Vulnerability Assessment

Before you buy anything, walk your site with a critical eye. A hazard vulnerability assessment identifies where traumatic injury is most likely and how many people could be affected in a worst-case scenario (JACEP Open).

Questions to work through:

• Where are the highest-risk activities? Machine shops, loading docks, mezzanine work, forklift traffic, and areas with sharp or rotating equipment carry elevated laceration and amputation risk.
• How many people occupy the site at peak times? A large warehouse floor or busy retail environment needs a materially different coverage plan to a small office.
• What is the realistic ambulance response time? Regional and remote sites, or sites on the edge of an urban catchment, should weight equipment and training more heavily given longer transport times.
• Where do people currently gather in an emergency? First aid rooms, muster points, and reception areas are natural anchor points, but should not be the only ones — response time from the point of injury is what counts.

This assessment should feed directly into your emergency response plan, and kit locations should be documented so new staff, contractors, and visitors can find them (JACEP Open).

Step 2: Get Placement Right

Placement is the single biggest lever in the research literature. A widely cited simulation study modelling a large public facility tested several placement strategies for bleeding control kits and found the following (Cambridge Core):

• The best-performing strategy divided kits between two locations, co-located with AEDs, spaced roughly 100 metres apart, positioned away from exits, and within a 90-second walking distance of any point in the facility.
• Distributing kits across more than the number of locations needed to satisfy the 90-second rule did not meaningfully improve outcomes.
• When kits were difficult to find, average retrieval time increased from roughly 18 seconds to 2.5 minutes — signage and visibility materially change outcomes.
• Clustering kits at exits actively worked against good outcomes, both by increasing travel time to inner parts of the facility and by risking congestion during evacuation.

Translating this to an Australian workplace:

Step 3: Decide on Quantity

Quantity should scale with occupancy and risk, not be a flat one-kit-fits-all decision. The framework most cited in the literature recommends that larger or higher-risk sites plan for the capability to treat a minimum of 20 bleeding casualties simultaneously, which translates to roughly 20 tourniquets and 40 gauze rolls or pressure dressings as a baseline, plus gloves and other consumables (JACEP Open). Modelling work also found a saturation point beyond roughly 20 tourniquets per venue, meaning there are diminishing returns to over-stocking a single site once that threshold is met — better to add a second well-placed station than to overload one cabinet.

For smaller workplaces, a single well-stocked station or a small number of portable kits carried by trained staff will usually suffice. The right number is a function of your hazard assessment from Step 1, not a fixed industry rule.

Step 4: Stock the Station Correctly

A bleed control station is not simply a first aid kit with a different label. The equipment inside should reflect current tactical and pre-hospital haemorrhage control practice. Recommended core contents include (JACEP Open):

• A commercially manufactured tourniquet, ideally one tested and validated for reliability under the US Committee for Tactical Combat Casualty Care testing framework. The TRUST Tactical Ratchet Tourniquet (ARTG 527880) uses a ratchet mechanism rather than a windlass, allowing genuinely one-handed application in under 10 seconds, which matters when the casualty may be applying it to themselves.
• Haemostatic gauze where funding allows, as it is preferentially recommended over standard gauze for major haemorrhage. Products such as QuikClot Combat Gauze LE and the QuikClot EMS Haemostatic Dressing are designed for exactly this application.
• Compression or pressure dressings as an adjunct or alternative where haemostatic gauze is not available or appropriate.
• Multiple pairs of latex-free gloves, because a bystander should never have to make contact with blood barehanded, and a kit is frequently used by more than one responder.
• Trauma shears for rapid clothing removal to expose the wound.
• Just-in-time instructions — clear, simple, pictorial guidance that assumes zero prior training, since the person opening the cabinet in an emergency may never have opened one before.

Optional additions worth considering depending on your hazard profile include a vented chest seal, a permanent marker for recording tourniquet application time, and a hypothermia blanket. Ready-configured options like the Large Tactical IFAK Bleed Control Kit or IFAK Bleed Control Kit Medium with CAT Tourniquet and Chest Seals can simplify procurement for sites building a station from scratch, and a Mini IFAK Bleed Control Kit makes sense as a portable supplement for supervisors or mobile teams who are not always near the fixed station.

Step 5: Signage and Accessibility

The same modelling that identified optimal placement also found that visibility dramatically affects retrieval time. A kit that is hard to find can take more than eight times as long to locate as one that is clearly marked. Practical steps:

• Use clear, high-contrast signage that is visible from a distance, consistent with your AED signage where possible.
• Mount the cabinet at a height and location accessible to all staff, consistent with workplace access requirements.
• Keep the cabinet unlocked or use a break-glass mechanism rather than a keyed lock — every second spent finding a key is a second of ongoing blood loss.
• Include the station location in site inductions, fire wardens' briefings, and emergency response documentation.
• Where practical, register the location with your internal emergency mapping so security, reception, or site management can direct responders quickly.

Step 6: Train Your People

Equipment without training closes only part of the gap. A systematic review of layperson bleeding-control courses found that hands-on practice with tourniquet application and wound packing produced meaningfully better skill outcomes than lecture-only instruction, and that stepwise, deliberate-practice training allowed most participants to reach competency within four attempts (European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery).

The same body of research flags an important limitation: skill decay. Studies found meaningful drops in tourniquet application success within three to nine months of initial training, with some recommending refresher sessions as early as the three-month mark. Practical implications for your workplace program:

• Run initial training that includes genuine hands-on practice with the exact tourniquet and dressings stocked in your station, not a generic demonstration.
• Build in scheduled refresher training — a single annual session is unlikely to maintain competency; more frequent shorter refreshers are more effective for skill retention.
• Consider simulation-based training tools rather than relying solely on live demonstration. Trainers such as the Slishman Tourniquet Conversion Trainer, which uses a dual-density silicone limb to teach directional pressure mechanics, allow staff to practise realistic tourniquet application and conversion technique repeatedly without consuming real supplies.
• Designate specific staff as the primary responders for your bleed control station, similar to how many workplaces designate first aid officers, while still training as broad a base of staff as practical — evidence suggests even brief awareness training improves willingness to intervene.
• Confidence matters as much as raw skill. Research on trauma kit provision alongside training found post-training confidence rose substantially when participants also received a take-home kit, compared to training alone.

Step 7: Maintain the System

A bleed control station that has not been checked in two years is a liability, not an asset. Ongoing program management should include (JACEP Open):

• A designated owner responsible for routine checks — this might be a WHS coordinator, first aid officer, or facilities manager.
• Scheduled inspections of contents and cabinet integrity, checking for tampering, environmental degradation, or unrecognised use.
• Expiry tracking, particularly for haemostatic dressings, which have a shelf life unlike most other kit contents.
• A resupply protocol so that after any use — training or real — the kit is decontaminated, inventoried, and restocked before it is needed again.
• Periodic review of program impact, ideally recording any real-world use of the station as part of your workplace incident reporting.

Comparison: Fixed Station vs Portable IFAK Approach

Many workplaces benefit from both approaches together: fixed stations for general site coverage, and portable IFAKs for supervisors, security, or mobile staff who may be first on scene before anyone can reach a fixed cabinet.

Frequently Asked Questions

Building the Right Station for Your Site

A bleed control station is only as good as the thinking that goes into it: a genuine hazard assessment, placement that respects the 90-second rule and steers clear of exits, sufficient quantity for your occupancy, contents that reflect current haemorrhage control practice, and a training and maintenance program that keeps both the equipment and the people around it genuinely ready.