I’ve had a bad problem with NPC companions not considering 5 or less bandages valuable enough to accept in trade. Between that and their apparently inability to take a break and heal over time like the player does when sleeping, it would be useful if you could just use bandages on NPCs.
Dunno whether it’d be most efficient to add that as an extra option when using healing items, or to add it as an “e” menu when examining NPCs, same way you get a menu for interacting with enslaved zombies. The later would possibly be most complex to code, but would be less annoying than giving one extra step to the task of using a bandage.