Health and Safety Policy
Where there are five or more employees in a company, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 states that there must be a written health and safety policy. This policy should give an undertaking to comply with all relevant legislation, define health and safety responsibilities throughout all levels of the organisation and specify relevant safe working practices for the various work activities. The health and safety policy should also tie in with other policies in the organisation, such as quality and personal procedures to recognise employees as the organisation's most valuable resource.
The health and safety policy is the backbone of your health and safety management system and needs to be communicated and understood, not only by your staff, but also by third party persons who have an interest, for example contractors, enforcing authorities and suppliers.
Organising Staff
The policy should set out the key health and safety roles and responsibilities of staff in the workplace as well as lines for reporting. Communication pathways should be clearly defined through all levels of staff so information can be gathered, acted upon and disseminated.
Health and Safety Arrangements
These 'arrangements' make up the main part of the policy. They should strategically lay out the corporate position in relation to managing the key health and safety issues associated with the business's practices. Typically these would include, but are not limited to:
- Risk Assessments
- First Aid
- Fire
- Stress
- Drug and alcohol
- Consultation with employees
- Accident investigation
Workplace Law's health and safety policy documentation
The health and safety policy will be drawn up to represent the specific issues associated with your business - not a 'size fits all document'. In developing your policy Workplace Law will take to time to understand your company objectives and requirements. This will require one of our safety professionals to visit your workplace in order to speak to your employees and gather information. This will enable us to generate the overall business risk register. From this we can either produce policies, procedures and other documentation through to more detailed Safe Systems of Work
Our health and safety policy arrangements can be built to contain hyperlinks to Health and Safety Executive good practice principles. This reduces the amount of generic text and focuses on the key bespoke elements pertinent to the needs of your organisation.
If you need help or advice about your organisation's health and safety policy call us now on 0871 777 8881.
