Small business health and safety
Small business health safety is essential to keep your people safe and is required by law, but it comes at a price of time and money.
A simple approach that allows you to get on with your job of running the business is to let a third party worry about all health and safety requirements within your company. We offer a competent safety advisor service that is very economical, but before we go into the details, let’s look at the essential health and safety requirements.
Small business health and safety checklist
There are some fundamental requirements that you must have in place by law.
- Health and safety policy
- Risk assessments and method statements (RAMS)
- Employee health and safety training with documented proof of delivery
Health and safety audit checklist
A quick health and safety audit will tell you if you have everything for an HSE inspection. A health and safety audit will check all your essential documents and then look at your arrangements to ensure the following areas are all covered.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Tools and Machinery
- Electrical
- Fire
- Heavy Loading/Unloading
- Chemical/Hazardous Substance Storage
- Working from Height
Health and safety legislation
As a director, it is essential to know and understand your responsibilities regarding health and safety. Below are the main health and safety legislation, laws, and requirements.
The Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974
If a health and safety offence is committed and the cause is the neglect of a director, the person and the organisation can be prosecuted.
Directors can appoint an independent third party to carry out their health and safety duties. The third-party must be fully qualified and competent to carry out the tasks. Delegating does not absolve the responsibility of a director; for example, if the safety advisor required employees to be trained and the director refused and an accident happened, then the director will held to account.
Read the health and safety at work act 1974 To ensure you understand your full health and safety executive responsibilities
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
All work activities are to manage risk. Once the risk or risks have been identified, the organisation must make arrangements to reduce or mitigate the risks.
This work takes the form of RAMS (Risk and Method Statements). The risk assessment identifies risks and examines ways to reduce them.
The method statement describes how the work is to be carried out and ensures that all PPE and other means to reduce the safety risk are included.
Please visit our risk and method statement shop. We have over 150 RAMS, some of which include 18 pages and 9,000 words, that you can buy very reasonably. The documents are in Word format, so you can adjust them to suit your project.
Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007
Corporate manslaughter and corporate homicide are when an employee is killed at work, and the HSE find the responsibility for the death is due to failure to carry out the work by all H&S laws.
It is very difficult to defend a death at work. The courts tend to side with the employee rather than the employer.
Learn more about the corporate manslaughter and corporate homicide act 2007
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/+/http:/www.justice.gov.uk/docs/manslaughterhomicideact07.pdf
Failing to fulfil director health and safety responsibilities
When a director breaches health and safety legislation and causes harm, the sentences can lead to prison and unlimited fines. Over the past few years, post-COVID, many companies have gone into administration or liquidation due to directors failing to carry out their lawful duties. The HSE is increasingly looking at individuals rather than just the company.
Competent safety advisor
One way to help yourself is to have your own health and safety advisor. You can delegate all health and safety responsibilities to this third-party person. Your safety advisor will educate you on what you need to do to keep your business safe.
If an accident does occur on-site, and the company has all health and safety requirements up to date, the safety advisor will deal with HSE for you.
A safety advisor can save you time and money for a basic monthly fee.
Request a chat and find out more about our safety advisor service
