If you have a business you must have a health and safety policy, the law states that if you have fewer than five employees, you don’t have to write anything down!

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Q, If you have any employees how confident are you that if questioned by any enforcing authority your employees would be capable of answering all their questions correctly and in line with what you state is your health and safety policy?

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In reality, hardly any employees will remember what they were told verbally about your health and safety policies.

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If your policies are wrote down and you could show that those policies had been brought to your employee's attention then you have some indemnity.

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A written policy should not be an unwieldy document but should reflect specifically what you as an employer are doing to safeguard your employees and others that may be affected whilst conducting your business.

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Policies are normally set out in three sections:

 

1. The statement of general policy on health and safety at work sets out your commitment to managing health and safety effectively, and what you want to achieve

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2.  The responsibility section sets out who is responsible for specific actions

 

3.  The arrangements section contains the detail of what you are going to do in practice to achieve the aims set out in your  statement of health and safety policy.  The arrangements section should say how you will meet the commitments you have made in your statement of health and safety policy and will include information on how you are going to eliminate or reduce the risks associated with the hazards in your workplace.

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What do we mean by 'hazard' and 'risk'?

 

A hazard is something in your business that has the potential to cause harm to people, such as chemicals, electricity and working at height.

 

A risk is a probability – however high or low – that harm could result from a particular hazard.

 

We can write you a health and safety policy, which is bespoke to your business.  We would need to meet with you for a chat to help us understand your business and your people.

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If you would like to arrange for a free initial visit to discuss your specific requirements or simply want an independent review of your existing policies, procedures, standards etc to ensure you are doing enough to meet all the legislative health and safety requirements applicable to your business please get in touch.

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If you would like to arrange for a free initial visit to discuss your specific requirements, you can either call us on 0114 4381707 or if out of hours you can simply make an enquiry by clicking below.