News & Blog

Health and safety

10th October 2023

What is health and safety?  Just red tape?  A hoop you have to jump through to keep a regulatory body off your back?  Or is it the way we all ensure that we, our fellow workers, employees, contractors and volunteers return home, injury free and healthy for another day?

Health and safety, at its core, is not only a means to safeguard ourselves and others… but it shows how much our businesses values everyone who carries out their work.

It means a lot; looking after someone’s safety and health.

Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act states, “It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety, and welfare at work of all their employees."

Legally – where there are 5 or more employees, you must have written health and safety policies, assessments and safe working processes. 

Where there are less than 5 employees, risk still needs to be reduced as far as reasonably practicable and so assessment of the risk should be written down – even if it isn’t in a formal risk assessment.

A holistic way to approach health and safety, from the top down, is like this… your policy dictates how you will conduct yourself in compliance with the law… your processes will reduce the risk of harm to people and loss to the business by risk assessment and informing staff of the safe working practices they should be adopting.

And when I say ‘top-down’, I mean it. 

Ultimately, the person responsible is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer in a business as, legally, they will be held accountable should anything go wrong.

This doesn’t mean that we expect the MD/CEO to be out with their clip-boards… just that they must ensure the policies are being carried out, as they would have signed them off.

The actual duties of carrying out assessments can be passed to those trained and competent to do so (like us, over at the H&S Department).

And this leads to another vital component;

Section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work act calls on employees to take reasonable care of their own health and safety at work as well as the health and safety of others who may be affected by their acts or omissions.

This is the bit where all of us – each and every one – has a duty to not place others at risk by doing something or failing to do something.

Reporting faults, accidents, near-misses (events that could have led to harm and loss) and unsafe acts will all paint a picture of what risks there are in the business so it can feed back into the risk assessment and reduce the likelihood of loss and harm even further.  

Employers can help employees in their duties by providing a safe workplace, equipment, training and those safe systems of work.  The employees, in turn, must carry out their work safely; if the work is not safe, they should notify line management immediately and make areas/equipment as safe as possible so others aren’t at risk. 

The Health and Safety Department is available to assist SMEs in our area who need to check their requirements under the H&S acts and regulations.  While the law is the law, we appreciate all businesses have differing needs where it comes to compliance and culture. 

If you want to have a chat and see how we can support or what your requirements are as an employer then please just reach out to us.  You can contact me directly by emailing tara.connolly@hsdept.co.uk or calling 07866937623 and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.