Rugby First Aid Kit for Parents and Coaches: What to Pack, and What the Club Should Have

Two kits, two jobs. The one in your touchline bag deals with grazes, burns, nosebleeds and cuts in the two minutes before your child wants to go back on. The one in the clubhouse deals with everything else, and there are rules about what has to be in it. Here's what goes where.

Your bag: the touchline kit

Junior rugby is grass burns, astro burns, grazed knees, a knock to the nose and the occasional split lip. Ninety per cent of it is "clean it, cover it, carry on," and the club's kit is usually on the far side of the pitch. A small kit in your bag means it gets done properly instead of with a wet wipe from the glovebox. What it needs:

• Sterile cleansing wipes or saline pods for cleaning grazes and burns before covering them. Not antiseptic wipes on an open graze if you can avoid it: they sting and children stop letting you clean things.
• Non-adherent dressings for grass and astro burns, the wounds that everything else sticks to. A plaster on a turf burn is a plaster you rip off with the scab at bedtime.
• Washproof plasters in a few sizes, because ordinary ones fall off the first time they sweat.
• Hydrocolloid plasters for the burns and grazes that need to heal under a dressing for a few days and survive a shower.
• Nitrile gloves. Any blood, gloves on. Other people's children's blood especially.
• An instant cold pack for knocks and sprains. Snap it, wrap it in a cloth, twenty minutes.
• Nasal plugs. Nosebleeds are a fact of life at a breakdown. Pinch the soft part of the nose, lean forward, ten minutes; then a plug once it's stopped if they want to go back on.
• A small pair of scissors and micropore tape.
• A bag for the rubbish. Bloody wipes and dressings don't go in the club bin loose.

That's what our turf burn first aid kit is, and why we built it: everything above in a bag that lives in the boot, with the turf burn guide on the card inside. The personal first aid kit is the same idea in a smaller bag for older kids who carry their own.

The clubhouse: what the club should have

A club is a workplace for its staff and coaches, and the HSE requires employers to provide first aid that is adequate and appropriate for the activity. For a rugby club that means a properly stocked kit at the pitch side, someone who's trained to use it, and a plan for the injuries that need more than a plaster. The kit should be built to BS 8599-1, the British Standard for workplace first aid kits, which sets the contents: sterile dressings in medium and large, eye pads, triangular bandages, washproof plasters, sterile wipes, nitrile gloves, a foil blanket, a burn dressing, a face shield, tape, shears and finger dressings. Then the sport-specific extras: non-adherent pads, hydrocolloids, instant cold packs, sterile eyewash and nasal plugs, because a standard workplace kit assumes paper cuts, not a scrum.

What to ask your child's club, politely, in the first month: where is the kit, who is the first aider on a Sunday, when was it last checked, and does anyone have the RFU's Headcase concussion training. A good club will have answers. A club that doesn't will usually be glad someone asked.

Our club first aid kit is the BS 8599-1 build with the rugby extras added, in a wall-mounted box with a monthly check card. It's the kit we specify in the Safer Healthcare in Contact Sports standard, and clubs that join our Safe Gym programme get one in their first delivery.

Three things no kit fixes

A named first aider at every session. The RFU offers first aid and emergency first aid in rugby union courses; ask whether the coaches have done one.

Knowing when it's not a plaster job. A cut that won't stop bleeding after ten minutes of pressure, a wound that gapes, anything on the face, a knock to the head with any confusion, sickness, drowsiness or a headache that's getting worse, a limb that won't bear weight, or a suspected broken nose that's blocked or crooked: those are urgent care or A&E, not the kit. If in doubt about a head knock, 999.

The boring hygiene. Grazes cleaned and covered before the next session, shower after training, kit washed the same night. Our guide to rugby injuries in children covers what's common, what's serious and what to do on the day.

First aid kits support, and do not replace, first aid training. This article is general guidance and not medical advice. If your child is injured, see a first aider, pharmacist or GP; in an emergency call 999.