Health and Safety - Part One : Safety in mind

Most employers must have liability insurance. This normally covers injuries and ill-health to employees. They're also likely to have insurance for accidents involving vehicles, possibly third party and buildings insurance. Employers' insurance policies only cover a small proportion of the costs of accidents and often don't cover sick pay, overtime working and temporary labour, accident investigation time and fines (generally after Court cases).

Remember that directors and managers can be held personally responsible for any failures to control health and safety. Can you and your organisation therefore afford such health and safety failures? Do you manage health and safety well enough alongside security?

A 'quality' organisation cannot exist unless sound management principles are applied to health and safety. If an accident occurs either you, your systems, procedures or employees will come under scrutiny. Will they stand up to rigorous examination? One thing's for sure. Any inspectors who visit your premises will want to know how you manage health and safety issues.

The Letter of the Law
Health and safety covers all employers, no matter how small and including the self-employed. For their part, employees also have a duty under health and safety legislation to take reasonable care.

Where, though, does the in-house manager start to ensure that all aspects of the company operation are complying with the legal requirements?

The main regulations covering health and safety are the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and a group of other documents collectively known as the 'six pack'. These are the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992, the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1992, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 and the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992.

The first two of these have since been replaced (in 1999 and 1998 respectively). The most important and helpful regulations for office-related work are the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 and the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992. Never overlook the remainder, though.

Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 ensures the safety of not only your own employees but the safety of others including contractors and members of the public. Employers have to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare both of their employees (Section 2 of the Act) and any other people who may use (Section 3) or have access to (Section 4) the workplace. Good management and common sense would lead employers to look at what the risks to health and safety actually are, and to take sensible measures to tackle them.

As previously mentioned, employees and the self-employed also have a duty to look after their own health and safety. Appointing 'one or more competent persons' to help you comply with your duties under health and safety law will assist you in preventing accidents and ill-health at work. In practice, you could appoint yourself (if you're sure you know enough about what's required), one or more of your employees or an external third party.

Health and safety duties cover a wide range of issues, such as identifying hazards and assessing risks, preparing health and safety policy statements, introducing risk control measures, providing adequate training and assessing the short and longer-term effects of work on employee health.

It makes very good sense to involve employees and their representatives in identifying problems and seeking solutions. They will know best where the challenges lie and problem areas exist. This often leads to practical suggestions and options to tackle the issue. Feedback on any changes you might introduce to working practices in your managerial capacity will be invaluable.

The Health and Safety Executive controls the area of safety in the workplace, existing not just to prosecute but to assist companies achieve the standards set by law

Employees' earlier involvement is more likely to mean a suitable, longer term solution. Specifically, where appropriate you must consult the safety representative when assessing risks in the workplace, deciding on preventive and/or protective measures, arranging the appointment of competent people and putting defined solutions in place.

Management of health and safety
There are five steps to effective health and safety management: set a health and safety policy, organise your staff, plan and set standards, measure your performance and audit and review. If followed religiously, these steps will help in complying with current laws.

The same sort of event that causes injuries and illness can also lead to property damage and/or interrupt production so you must aim to control all accidental loss. Therefore, by deciding what precautions are needed, putting them in place and checking they are used, you can protect people, improve quality and help safeguard the business.

The law states that ALL businesses employing five or more individuals must have a written health and safety policy in place. This sets out how employers manage health and safety within their organisation, who does what, when and how. A health and safety policy should influence all activities, including the selection of people, equipment and materials, the way in which work is carried out and the provision of goods and services.

A written policy statement including the organisation and arrangements for implementing and monitoring shows staff – and anyone else – that hazards have been identified and the risks assessed, eliminated or controlled. A hazard can be defined as anything that has the potential to cause harm. The severity of harm will vary from cuts and bruises to serious illness and even death.

A risk is the chance (high or low) that someone will be harmed by the hazard (ie the combination of the severity of harm with the likelihood of it happening).

Organisation of the staff
Staff involvement and their commitment is essential to ensuring that the health and safety policy is effective. This is often referred to as a 'positive health and safety culture'. The organ-isation of employees covers four main areas:

• competence (which involves recruitment, training and advisory support);
  
• control – ie allocating responsibilities, securing commitment, instruction and detailed supervision;
  
• co-operation between individuals/groups;
  
• communication – spoken, written or visible.

Ensuring competence means assessing the skills required to conduct tasks safely and making sure that these are adequately met. All employees – including managers and supervisors – should be adequately trained and standards maintained. If required, arranging access to advice and help may well assist in ensuring health and safety criteria are met.

Various people should be identified as being responsible for particular aspects of health and safety, most importantly wherever specialist expertise is called for (eg risk assessments and permits to work).

Ensure that managers, supervisors and team leaders understand their responsibilities and have the time and resources to carry them out.