Effective Risk Management

Health and Safety Legislation

Finding health and safety legislation that is relevant to your business can be a real headache. There are so many acts and regulations that keeping track of them is hard enough without having to try and understand and implement them. Most people like to work within their comfort zone and will take on the work that they understand and can do, leaving the tedious and unfamiliar work to sit in the “In Tray” and hope it will just go away.

The trouble with health and safety legislation is that it won’t go away because people are still suffering from ill health and being injured or killed at work. Until employers and employees start to get to grips with what health and safety at work is all about and manage the risks to people to prevent accidents, health and safety legislation will continue to develop and become ever more tightly enforced.

Guardian Risk Management are here to help businesses wade through the mountains of legislation and provide advice on which laws are relevant to each business. We can outline the key Acts and Regulations here, but will need to have a better understanding of each business before we can advise on the more specific ones.

Health and safety law has been around for over a century, but it wasn’t until the 1960’s that formal acts of parliament were passed to ensure that health and safety in the majority of workplaces was controlled. These acts included the Factories Act and the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act.

The problem was that there were other workplaces that were not covered by these two key Acts. So in 1974, The Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA) was brought out to pull together existing Acts and Regulations and to allow new Acts and Regulations to be introduced. The HASAWA has 85 sections and 10 schedules that are too numerous to list here. The key sections that employers and employees need to be aware of are listed below.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974

Section 2. General Duties of Employers to Employees

This section sets out the duties of employers to:

• Provide and maintain safe plant and systems of work
• Arrange for the safe use, handling, storage and transport of articles and substances
• Provide information, instruction, training and supervision for employees
• Provide safe means of access and egress to the workplace
• Provide adequate welfare facilities

There is also a duty to have a written health and safety policy if 5 or more people are employed and to consult with employees on matters of health and safety.

Section 3. General Duties of Employers and Self Employed to Non-employees

Section 4. General Duties of Persons in Control of Premises to Non-employees

Section 5. General Duties to Control Harmful Emissions to Atmosphere

Section 6. General Duties of Designers, manufacturers, importers or suppliers of articles or substances

Section 7. General Duties of Employees

This section sets out the duties of employees to:

• Take reasonable care of the health and safety of himself or others
• Cooperate with the employer so that the employer can comply with their legal duties

Section 8. Duty not to interfere or misuse anything provided for health and safety.

Section 9. Duty of Employers not to charge for anything provided for health and safety.

As well as the HASAWA, there are other key pieces of legislation that apply to almost all workplaces. They are:

• The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (The Management Regulations)
• The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER)
• The Manual Handling Regulations
• The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations
• The Display Screen Equipment (DSE) Regulations
• The Personal Protective Equipment Regulations

These all originally came into force in 1992, but the Management Regulations and PUWER have been amended since. They are known collectively by safety professionals as the “Six-Pack” Regulations and set out the requirements to undertake risk assessments in the workplace and to provide safe systems of work and training for employees.

There is also a requirement in the Management Regulations to provide health surveillance and to appoint a Competent Person to advise on health and safety.

Other regulations that affect most businesses include:

• Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2006
• The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations
• The Electricity at Work Regulation
• The Working at Height Regulations
• The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, 2005
• Construction (Design & Management) Regulations 2007

We recommend that all businesses should familiarise themselves with the requirements of the HASAWA and all of the regulations listed above. In doing so, there is a good chance that you will be able to minimise the risks to your workforce and consequently save money on accident costs, fines and prosecutions and insurance premiums.

Further Information

For more details please call Mark Rastrick on 07966 174360 or simply email us at info@grmhs.co.uk and we will contact you.