If your company employs five or more people then you are required by law under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to have a written health & safety policy. This document contains your statement of general policy on health and safety at work as well as the organisation and arrangements you have in place for putting that policy effectively into practice. In addition, a health and safety policy also contains many other notes and references for further information.
Like many other small business owners and entrepreneurs, you may have little experience of drawing up health and safety documents. And, if you only employ a relatively small number of people, you may well find your collective capability to write such a policy to be just as limited as yours alone.
Fortunately we here at Simply-docs can be of great assistance in this respect as we are able to provide downloadable health and safety document templates which can help you to devise and develop your own comprehensive policy.
Comprehensive Policy
Quite simply, your health and safety policy needs to clearly state who does what, when and how.
To this end, your policy needs to include and address the following aspects:
• Health and safety policy statement – Statement of general policy, signed and dated.
• Responsibilities – overall, day-to-day, specific areas.
• Health and safety risks – what they are, what action is needed to remove/control them, who is responsible, time for review?
• Consultation with employees – who are your employee’s representatives, who provides consultation?
• Safe plant and equipment – who is responsible for identifying when maintenance is required, who draws up maintenance procedures, who should problems be reported to, who purchases new equipment?
• Safe handling and use of substances – who identifies hazardous substances, who is responsible for undertaking COSHH assessments, informing employees, reviewing assessments?
• Information, instruction and supervision – where is the Health and Safety Law Poster displayed and/or who issues the equivalent leaflets, who supervises and trains new staff members?
• Competency for tasks and training – who provides induction training, job specific training, keeps training records?
• Accidents, first aid and work related ill health – who requires, arranges and keep records of health surveillance, where is the first aid equipment stored, who is the appointed person/designated first aider, who keeps records, who is responsible for reporting incidents relevant to RIDDOR?
• Monitoring – who monitors conditions and safe working practices, who investigates accidents and work related sickness?
• Emergency procedures – who carries out fire risk assessments, how often are things like escape routes, fire extinguishers, alarms and evacuation procedures checked?