Updated Saturday, 02 July 2011
Notes and templates for staff and representatives
Every business has a legal responsibility to comply with certain Health and Safety rules. These regulations are designed to protect people who are affected by your business activities including:
- employees working in the office, at home or on site
- visitors to business premises including customers and suppliers
- visitors to other places where you conduct business, such as a construction site
- members of the public
- any users of products or services you supply
A business must carry out a risk assessment of any hazards. A policy to deal with these dangers must then be created and put in writing if there are five or more employees.
Other relevant rules to comply with include:
- recording and reporting accidents
- consultation with employees
- training and education of employees to ensure compliance with the company Health & Safety policy
- registration with the Health & Safety Executive, if certain conditions apply
- holding appropriate employers liability insurance.
This arrangements section could include such matters as risk assessments, fire safety, first aid, accident reporting, electrical safety, work equipment, hazardous substances, manual handling and other workplace issues.
Airmax agrees that this policy is a live document and can updated by appropriate members of staff.
Setting out a policy
The aim of this policy is that it is clear and easy to read an understand
Airmax has appointed Peter Williams in the Verwood office, 01932504300 x1 p.williams@airmaxgroup.com
and
Phil Mach 01932504300 x2 p.mach@airmaxgroup.com in the Birmingham office as our designated health and safety officers
Aims of a policy
There are no hard and fast rules about the length of the policy. The important thing to remember is to link the aims of the policy to the level of risk. Risk Assessment will determine how explicit you need to be in your arrangements section.
Informing employees
Copies are posted in each office.
Monitoring and review
The policy is reviewed and checked weekly or as needed
More formally, effective monitoring can be achieved through audits and by reviewing management reports and accident investigations.
There are specific environmental rules that businesses must adhere to in terms of Health and Safety. You must:
- store and dispose of waste correctly
- avoid behaving as a statutory nuisance by producing noise, fumes, light etc
- comply with any registration and practices relevant to trade effluent
- adhere to compliance and registration rules for packaging if turnover is more than £2million per year
- comply with restrictions on the use of hazardous substances.
Health and safety rules are enforced by the Health & Safety Executive or the local authority. Further information can be found at the Health & Safety Executive website or by telephoning the helpline number on 0845 345 0055.
The Process
In most work environments, you (or your designated health and safety officer) can carry out the risk assessment yourself, calling in specialist help for specific hazards (e.g. to monitor levels of airborne particles or noise).
Identify the hazards
- Physically inspect your premises and the tasks carried out there.
- Ask employees and safety representatives what hazards they are aware of. Working as a small team, with an insider from each department to provide experience and an outsider for a fresh eye, can be useful.
- Check suppliers’ instructions and information on equipment and materials.
- Check your records of accidents and sickness. These may point to hazards.
- If your work varies, or you operate on different sites, include other hazards which you can expect to come across.
Decide who could be affected. You are responsible for the health and safety of everyone who could be affected, not just your employees.
- Visitors, contractors and new employees may be at extra risk. Bear in mind that they may not be aware of your safety procedures.
- Consider those who are particularly vulnerable (e.g. pregnant women, people who work alone and those with a disability).
Evaluate how likely it is that employees and others could be hurt and how effective your existing precautions are
- If there are any specific legal requirements affecting your industry, have you complied with them?
- Do you meet industry standards?
- What risk remains? How many people could it affect, and how badly?
Decide what you can do to eliminate or minimise the risk
- Ideally, you should eliminate the hazard altogether.
- Most risks can be reduced to acceptable levels with simple procedures and systems.
- Consider additional measures, which are reasonably practicable, to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. For example, warning signs or personal protective equipment.
Record the outcome of your health and safety risk assessment and any corrective action taken
- The written record can be a useful reminder of areas you may need to keep under review.
Review your assessment periodically (e.g. annually).
- You will also need to amend your assessment when circumstances change (e.g. when you acquire new equipment).
Reasonably Practicable Steps
The law recognises it is not always practicable for an employer to remove every risk.
For example:
- If an employee has to visit a room full of noisy machinery once a month for ten minutes, providing ear muffs should be adequate.
- If an employee occasionally has to cross a busy loading bay, providing a designated marked route with warning signs should be adequate.
When the hazards are encountered more frequently, or the number of employees involved rises, the risk becomes unacceptable and you will be required to take further steps.
Health and safety policy
Building on the health and safety policy statement and commitments of the Airmax Board, we will strive to achieve the aim of ‘Zero Harm’ through the implementation of the policy statement set out below.
Airmax Group will:
- always place achievement of high standards of health and safety before commercial gain;
- promote high standards of health and safety throughout the organisation, placing special emphasis on the effect of adding equipment to vehicles. In pursuing this aim any departure from the designed safety margins will be treated with appropriate seriousness and urgency.
- develop and sustain training programmes to equip people with the necessary skills and behaviours to support safe and reliable operations and continuous improvement in health and safety standards.
- provide supervision to oversee the work and to reinforce the required standards and expectations.
- maintain a clearly documented management system to deliver the health and safety policy.
- implement the principles of continuous improvement in health and safety by establishing risk-based improvement programmes and objectives, and by benchmarking and reviewing progress against these objective.
- work together with staff and their representatives on health and safety matters, and consult with their representatives for the business as a whole and at each company location through company-wide.
- promote a culture of co-operation and open communication, in which every opportunity is taken to learn from actual and potential failures of the health and safety arrangements and no unfair blame is placed on individuals.
- ensure line responsibility for health and safety is clear and unambiguous and that, whose role is to provide independent regulation on health and safety and which has right of access to the Airmax Board.
- work together with contractors and maintain control of contractors’ work by appropriate specification, supervision and monitoring.
- carry out surveillance, measurement and management reviews to assess the effectiveness of this policy statement and the associated management system and make revisions, as may be necessary, to improve health and safety standards.
Policy Standards
- On site and home working safety is paramount.
- Line responsibility for health and safety is clear and unambiguous.
- The roles and responsibilities of staff are clearly defined and made known to the staff.
- Staff are suitably qualified and experienced to undertake their roles.
- Everyone accepts personal responsibility for their own health and safety, and for those around them.
- Tasks are carried out in accordance with approved procedures.
- The principles of continuous improvement in health and safety management are embedded, and benchmarked.
- The workforce is consulted in health and safety matters and they have a strong sense of ownership of the health and safety management processes.
- Legal compliance is achieved.
- Teamwork principles are established across the organisation and with contractors and other stakeholders.
