Health Safety Legal Requirements and Compliance
What you must do to fulfil Health and Safety Requirements in in your Business
Legal requirements under the Health and Safety At Work etc Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
(and what an employer has to do to comply with the minimum legal requirements. )
What does the act require the employer to comply with if they employ more than 5 people?
Section 2(3) of the H&S at Work etc Act 1974 states, "It shall be the duty of every employer to prepare and as often as may be appropriate revise a written statement of his/her general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of his/her employees and the organisation and arrangements for the time being in force for carrying out that policy, and to bring the statement and any revision of it to the notice of all his/her employees.
- The policy must state the general policy on health and safety.
- Describe the organisation and arrangements for carrying out the policy
- Be brought to the notice of all employees
- Be revised whenever appropriate, and every revision must be brought to the attention of all employees.
- It is a legal requirement under the Act, and has to be complied with.
Legal Considerations
The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 places a general duty on employers to ensure the health, safety and welfare of employees. The possible consequences of failing to comply with health and safety legislation, approved codes of practice, guidance notes and accepted standards, plus other relevant legislation in areas such as fire prevention, environmental, pollution and products liability, will have a negative impact on organisations. Loss may result from the preventative (enforcement notices), punitive (criminal sanctions) and compensatory effects of law.
The Law also requires Organisations to carry out Risk Assessments!
Section 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work 1999 Regulations
Requires employers and self-employed to assess the risks to which their employees are exposed and the risks to non-employees created as a result of the way in which they carry out their undertakings. These are general assessments and are applied to all work activities, regardless of any legal or other requirements for specific risk assessments.
The overall purpose of a risk assessment is to identify the measures needed to be taken to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed by and under the relevant statutory provisions.
What is required by the Act pertaining to Risk Assessments?
In short, the legal requirements under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require:
- Employers to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of risks to the health and safety of employees and non-employees (the assessment is carried out with a view to identifying what measures need to be implemented to comply with legal requirements)
- That the assessment should be reviewed.
- That particular emphasis is placed on assessment of risks:
- To new and expectant mothers.
- Decide who is at risk
- Evaluate the risk
- Record significant findings
- Review and revision.
- INDG 163 introduces five basic steps in the risk assessment process.
- Hazard identification
- Decide who is at risk
- Evaluate the risks
- Record significant findings
- Review and revision.
Health and Safety Law is made up of two parts of the Law:
Criminal Law and Civil Law
The Criminal Law of health and Safety is virtually all in the form of Statute. Civil Law exists in order to regulate disputes over rights and obligations.
The employer has a duty of care to all his employees under the Act and any breaches of this duty the employee has to prove that the employer owed him a duty of care There was a breach in that duty of care, and from the breach he had suffered an actionable loss as a result of the breach.
Organisations and companies have to take into consideration in today’s world the legal and economic considerations both in the terms of financial aspects and the cost to the nation each time an accident occurs in three main areas:
The services offered here assist employers in assessing the workplace for hazards and risks and putting in place preventative measures that can have an effect business by putting in place a health and safety plan which shows the aims and goals of the organisation which in turn can pay dividends by decreasing any claims being made against the organisations insurance policy by the below mentioned items:-
Human aspects-cost to the victim include:
- Mental strain
- Suffering
- Loss of earnings
- Extra expenditure
- Possibility of continuing disability
- Possible loss of life
- Incapacity for some kinds of work
- Loss of leisure activities
- Effect on family, friends and colleagues.
Financial aspects- cost to the company
- Loss of skilled and experience workers.
- Loss of production
- Loss of profit from injured workers.
- Expense of re-training injured worker or a replacement
- Time loss by the effect on other workers.
- Loss of income from damage to corporate reputation.
- Increased insurance premiums.
Costs to the nation include:
- The expense/burden on medical or health services and facilities.
- The burden on welfare benefits and other social services provided by government.
