Organisations have a legal duty to put in place suitable arrangements to manage health and safety. For some organisations whose activities are predominantly office based, implementing health and safety protocols can be reasonably straight forward and uncomplicated. For other organisations, this can be more onerous and less straightforward and therefore, help and assistance may be required.
What Do The Management Of Health & Safety At Work Regulations 1999 Say?
The Management Regulations require employers to put in place arrangements to control health and safety risks. As a minimum, organisations should have the processes and procedures required to meet the legal requirements, these include:
- a written health and safety policy (if you employ five or more people);
- assessments of the risks to employees, contractors, customers, and any other people who could be affected by your activities
- arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures that come from risk assessment;
- access to competent health and safety advice;
- providing employees with information about the risks in your workplace, and how they are protected from those risks;
- instruction and training for employees in how to deal with the risks;
- ensuring there is adequate and appropriate supervision in place;
- consulting with employees about their risks at work and current preventive and protective measures.
Do I Need Health & Safety Support?
Whether you need health and safety support and assistance will depend on the resources available to you, and the competence of those resources. Under the Management Regulations, you must have access to competent health and safety advice – that is, someone (whether it be internally or externally) who has the experience, training, qualifications and knowledge of your industry sector, understands your business and are familiar with the risks associated with it.
When assessing your capabilities, you may conclude that you are able to manage your health and safety responsibilities yourself by sharing tasks amongst your employees, or you may decide that some health and safety duties can be managed internally. However, you may need some additional assistance or support. The Management Regulations make it quite clear that if assistance is required, then it must be sourced to ensure that you are complying with your statutory obligations.
Advice, Help or Assistance
Should you need any help, assistance or advice regarding the health and safety support you may require, then please contact Paul Littlewood on 01332 668877 or email [email protected].
