Defibrillators on construction sites: obligations and best practices

French law 2018-527 and its implementing decree, decree 2018-1186, require a defibrillator in buildings open to the public (ERP in French), with deadlines staggered between 2020 and 2022 depending on the building's category. A construction or civil engineering site, whether a new build, a renovation or infrastructure works, does not fall under this definition: it does not receive the public, only employees and contractors from subcontracting companies.

This absence of a legal obligation does not mean an absence of risk. French labour law entrusts the employer with organising first aid on the worksite, which includes the first aid kit and, increasingly, a defibrillator made available to the teams present on site.

Installing a defibrillator on a construction site is therefore a voluntary choice, often guided by the size of the company, the expected duration of the works and how far the site sits from public emergency services. Some project owners now require it in their specifications, alongside other collective safety equipment.

Construction work strains the heart more than most office jobs: carrying loads, awkward postures, exposure to summer heat and winter cold, and sometimes shifted working hours. The average age of crews keeps rising in several trades, which increases the share of employees carrying cardiovascular risk factors without always knowing it.

Access for emergency responders is also a concern. A site can sit on the edge of an urban area, on an isolated plot, or behind security fencing that slows down emergency vehicles. Every minute without defibrillation cuts survival chances by about 10 percent, a delay that weighs heavily when reaching the site itself already takes several minutes.

Add the noise of machinery, which delays colleagues noticing someone in distress, and work at height or in trenches, which can complicate immediate access to the casualty. These constraints specific to construction make an on-site device more useful than in a typical office setting.

A defibrillator intended for a construction site first needs to withstand its environment: dust, splashes, vibration from machinery, temperature swings. A sturdy outdoor cabinet or a rigid transport case protects the device far better than a simple wall mount designed for a reception hall.

The population on a site is almost exclusively adult, which makes paediatric electrodes rarely useful, except when family or children's visits are planned. Upkeep follows the same rules as everywhere else: electrodes replaced every two to five years, battery every three to five years, the unit itself renewed after eight to ten years of use, with regular self-tests to confirm everything still works.

On most sites, a health and safety coordinator tracks the site's risks and can fold the defibrillator into the general coordination plan, alongside other first aid resources. Training a handful of workplace first aiders per crew, confident enough to use the device without hesitation, makes a concrete difference to a colleague's chances of survival.

The defibrillator's location needs to stay known to everyone despite the frequent crew changes typical of this sector: signage at the entrance of the site cabin, a reminder during safety inductions, visible signposting from the furthest work areas, in line with the principles of the French decree of 29 November 2018 on signage.

A short awareness session, repeated whenever a new crew or subcontractor arrives, usefully complements the training of workplace first aiders. The goal stays the same: the first person on the scene should know where the device is and start the life-saving actions without waiting for emergency services to arrive.

A construction site rarely lasts more than a few months to a few years, which makes rental particularly well suited: it includes maintenance, avoids tying up budget in an asset that will only serve for a while, and lets the device follow the company from one site to the next as its operations move on. Rental starts at 50 euros excl. VAT per month, maintenance included, with delivery in two to five business days and a quote within 24 hours.

A company running a string of sites over several years may prefer to buy, with a five-year warranty, and move the unit between its various site cabins as needed. The choice mostly depends on how often the company takes on new sites rather than on their size.