Health and Safety Laws for Employers

This is a brief guide to health and safety laws. It does not describe the law in detail, however, it does list the key points.

The law protects the health, safety, and welfare at work of your employees. You have a responsibility to protect your employees and keep them informed about their health and safety laws.

Which Laws Apply?

The basis of British health and safety law is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which sets out employers’ general duties towards employees and members of the public.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 clarifies what employers are required to do to manage health and safety under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Like the Act, they apply to every work activity.

What Do Health and Safety Laws Require?

You have a duty under the law to ensure. So far as is reasonably practicable, your employees’ health, safety, and welfare at work. In other words, the degree of risk in a particular job or workplace needs to be equitable; against time, trouble, cost, and the physical difficulty of taking measures to avoid or reduce the risk.

What the law requires here is what good management and common sense would lead you to do anyway: that is, to look at what the risks are and take sensible measures to tackle them.

You Must Consult with Your Employees, or Employee Safety Representative, on Matters Relating to Their Health and Safety at Work, Including:

  • Any change that may substantially affect their health and safety at work, e.g. in procedures, equipment, or ways of working;
  • Your arrangements to get competent people to help you satisfy health and safety laws;
  • The information you have given your employees on the likely risks and danger arising from their work measures to reduce or get rid of these risks what they should do if they have to deal with a risk or danger;
  • The planning of health and safety;
  • The health and safety consequences of introducing new technology.

In Particular, You Must:

  • Assess the risks to your employees’ health and safety. Risk assessment should be straightforward in a simple workplace such as a typical office. Complication should only be if it deals with serious hazards such as those on a nuclear power station, a chemical plant, a laboratory, or an oil rig.
  • Make arrangements for implementing the health and safety measures identified as being necessary by the assessment;
  • If there are five or more employees, record the significant findings of the risk assessment and the arrangements for health and safety measures;
  • If there are five or more employees, draw up a health and safety policy statement, including the health and safety organisation and arrangements in force, and bring it to your employees’ attention;
  • Appoint someone competent to assist with health and safety responsibilities, and consult your employees or employee representative about this appointment;
  • Co-operate on health and safety with other employers sharing the same workplace;
  • Set up emergency procedures;
  • Provide adequate first-aid facilities;
  • Make sure the workplace satisfies health, safety, and welfare requirements, e.g. for ventilation, temperature, lighting, and sanitary, washing, and rest facilities;
  • Make sure that work equipment is suitable for its particular use, so far as health and safety are a concern, and that it is properly maintained and put in use;
  • Prevent or adequately control exposure to substances that may damage your employees’ health;
  • Take precautions against danger from flammable or explosive hazards, electrical equipment, noise, and radiation;
  • Avoid hazardous manual handling operations, and where they are unable to avoid, reduce the risk of injury;
  • Provide health surveillance as appropriate;
  • Provide free any protective clothing or equipment, where risks are not adequately being controlled by other means;
  • Ensure that appropriate safety signs are provided and maintained;
  • Report certain injuries, diseases, and dangerous occurrences to the appropriate health and safety enforcing agency.

Source: Health and Safety Executive

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Disclaimer: All the information provided in this article on Health and Safety Laws for Employers, including all the texts and graphics, is general in nature. It does not intend to disregard any of the professional advice.

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