The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 serve as a reinforcement to the original Health and Safety Act 1974. These regulations explain what employers are expected to do to manage health and safety, as well as other work activities. These regulations put a set of duties on both employers and employees for the sake of maintaining a healthy, safe workplace.
As previously stated, these regulations are all about explaining what employers and employees need to do as part of health and safety at work. This is a code which needs to be followed, and to that effect should be taught to all employees of your business to guarantee they understand what is expected of them.
The primary duty which is placed on employers by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations is to make sure that they conduct risk assessments to find potential hazards to their staff. They also need to make sure that they protect anyone who might be affected by everyday operations. If there are more than five people in the organisation, then part of the employer’s responsibility under the act is to document the findings of any risk assessments.
Employers are expected to appoint one person from within the organisation to help oversee, supervise and assist them with all matters relating to health and safety in the workplace, as well as complying with legislation.
Employers also have a responsibility to make sure that employees have all the necessary health and safety information that they need provided to them in an understandable, accessible format.
Employees have certain responsibilities within the boundaries of the health and safety regulations.
Employees have a responsibility to report any health and safety shortcomings, to report dangerous accidents within the workplace as well as actual incidents, use equipment in accordance with proper training to take reasonable care of their own safety and health in the workplace, as well as anybody else who might be in said workplace, and it is important to understand that these duties are both supported and supplemented by the existing duties already laid out for employees under section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
Self-employed people take on similar responsibilities as employers, but they are directly responsible for their own health and safety, as well as anybody else that might work with them.
Temporary workers are expected to receive the same support and training on health and safety as normal workers, which means that they should be given an introductory lecture or seminar when they first join the company, and should be held to the same standard as employees for the duration of their time with that company.
As part of your responsibilities, as an employer, you will be expected to carry out a risk assessment.
This will involve conducting a proper tour of the premises and identifying any hazards, which might be present that could pose a risk to staff. If you do this, then you should make sure that you log your findings, and that you also design control measures which are going to prevent these hazards from becoming an issue.
The general principles of prevention are considered to be as follows.
It is important to make sure that your business is avoiding risks, evaluating the risks that can’t be avoided, dealing with risks at their source, adapting work to suit the needs of the individual, adapting procedures to suit technical progression, replacing dangerous methods with less-dangerous alternatives, building a coherent prevention policy which uses technology effectively, giving collective measures priority over individual measures, and giving appropriate instructions to staff.
When you sit down and write a health and safety policy, your arrangements section should talk about the kind of commitments that you’re going to make in regards to health and safety. There will be information contained within it about how you’ll tackle some of the specific risks and hazards in your workplace.
Employers are required to maintain a certain level of health surveillance as part of their ongoing responsibilities. This surveillance is designed to provide a broad range of observations and analytics that will allow employers to keep an eye on staff members and offer assistance where necessary.
As an employer, you will be expected to provide certain health and safety assistance to members of your organisation as necessary. To do this, and to oversee a lot of the ongoing rules and regulations laid down by the authorities, many businesses choose to nominate a chosen member of their organisation to assist them.
This individual should be given access to proper training as part of their role, and should also receive suitable levels of support and compensation for carrying out their duties.
Employers have a responsibility to make sure that they protect new and expectant mothers from harm in the workplace.
This may involve revising certain policies or workloads to make sure that the mother is not being overwhelmed or put at risk of harm. It will also require a serious discussion with the mother to identify what she is capable of managing and how this will change as either the pregnancy matures or the baby grows.
When it comes to young people, there are certain duties and responsibilities which must be adhered to by employers. They need to focus on keeping young people safe and giving them the tools to manage life in the workplace.
As an employer, you have several responsibilities and legal duties under health and safety law. These consist primarily of assessing the risks found in the workplace. You need to identify work activities which could cause illness or injury to people, and then take steps to remove the hazard. If you cannot remove the hazard, your legal duty is to instead control it.
Every organisation needs to construct a risk profile. This will inform many aspects of your approach to both managing and leading health and safety risks.
As an organisation, you will have a unique risk profile.
Consider this to be the start point for working out what the general health and safety concerns are for your organisation. In a lot of businesses, these risks will be tangible, and will point to immediate health.
However, there will be some organisations where the risks will be health-related. This means it will be a long time before illnesses and injuries become obvious.
Your risk profile will examine quite a few different topics. The nature and type of threats being faced by an organisation, the likelihood of any effects, the disruption and costs associated with those risks, and the effectiveness of any controls in place for managing them all need to be considered in a risk profile.
Risk profiles might seem difficult at first, but they can be a useful way to identify and target the big risks to deal with.
Within the world of health and safety you will encounter what is known as an approved code of practice and guidance. If you take the time to follow the advice given within these codes, then you’ll be doing enough to make sure that you comply with the regulations that you need to as part of health and safety in the workplace.
Enforcement of the Regulations and the Consequences of Breaching
The regulations for health and safety within the workplace are once again controlled and maintained by the Health and Safety Executive which is the legal authority in this field.
As the official authority for health and safety, this institution has the ability to investigate and impose sanctions and regulations upon businesses as they see fit to safeguard the workers and general public.
This means that you could be asked to make changes to the way that you do things in your business for the sake of complying with these regulations. In the event that you do not do this, you could face sanctions which include unlimited fines and potential prison time.
Understandably, as these are not things that any business wishes to have to deal with, it’s important to make sure that you receive the correct training. This is where Learn Q can provide targeted support for a business.
Not only will employers benefit from receiving proper health and safety training, but it can also be an effective way of training your entire workforce to understand their requirements. Employees have their own unique responsibilities which is why it can be important to give them the right training. We will be more than happy to help your entire staff receive the training that they need to thrive. This type of training is so important so it is well worth taking the time to seek it out.
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