• H&S Workbook
  • 1. Introduction
    
  • 10. Certificates, Form and Information Sheets
    
  • 2. Health and Safety Policy
    
  • 3. Risk Assessment
    
  • 4. Control of Substances
    
  • 5. Accident Prevention
    
  • 6. Manual Handling
    
  • 7. Work Equipment
    
  • 8. Ergonomics and Workstations
    
  • 9. Work Environment
    

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1. Introduction

This workbook has been produced to assist you in the implementation and development of health and safety within your organisation.

Details of how and where to contact your local authority can be found towards the end of this page. Also available are information sheets on different types of activities that may be applicable to your business. These along with leaflets covering most aspects of health and safety are available from your local authority.

Along side the main legislation i.e. Acts of Parliament and Regulations are Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Guidance Notes and Approved Codes of Practice. These are very specific and may be relevant to your business or the activities that you undertake.

Information on these is available from your SCDC or HSE Books.

By systematically working through the workbook from Section 1 to Section 10, the many requirements of current legislation can be met.

The workbook provides a variety of working templates that can be copied as required and used or adapted to your own organisational requirements. Even though all areas of health and safety cannot be fully detailed within this workbook, the main subject areas have been covered.

The workbook is designed to be a living and working document, which should be continually reviewed and updated as required.

Summary:

Each Section of the workbook will have a brief summary or checklist to prompt you.

Management of Health and Safety

Good health and safety management is vital in ensuring that safe practices are adopted and maintained throughout the organisation.

In order to achieve this, the following areas need to be considered.

The health and safety policy is a good starting point to improve the health and safety culture throughout the organisation. This will provide employees with fundamental
information about the principles of health and safety and will confirm the employers intent on providing a safe place to work.
It is essential that the employer or manager demonstrate safe practices, which will inevitably motivate and empower employees to follow by their good example.

Through a systematic and planned approach, the implementation of health and safety improvements is made easier. Risk assessment methods, as described in this workbook, are essential in helping you achieve the standards required by health and safety legislation. Effective communication between employers and employees within the organisation is paramount. When carrying out risk assessments the input, knowledge and experience of staff is invaluable.

Pro-active monitoring is a continual process looking at your health and safety management systems, procedures and equipment. This enables you to identify
deterioration in equipment or deficiencies in work activities and enables you to identify training needs for staff.
Following accidents, incidents or near misses, reactive monitoring and investigation should be used to identify the underlying causes. Once these have been established
procedures can be improved. The new procedures or equipment that have been introduced would then need to be monitored for effectiveness.

Induction and Training

Even though staff may have previous experience when joining your organisation you must assess their training needs in order that they can safely carry out their duties.

Questions to ask yourself would include:

• Any previous experience or training? (is there any evidence available?)
• Are you employing young people?
• Are they physically and mentally suitable for their tasks?
• What level of supervision and training do they need?

An induction programme should be introduced. This may be from 2 hours to several days in length or split over several weeks. The following should be included:

• Company's health and safety policy
• Site specific information and layout
• Emergency procedures
• Specific task or equipment training
• Reporting Accidents

Training is always an issue for new and existing staff, as work procedures, equipment and activities change from time to time. It is therefore vital to keep staff up to date with the changes. Monitoring the way people are carrying out their duties (e.g. how they use equipment) can identify future training needs.

At times it may be necessary to demonstrate the level of training that staff have received.
Record should be kept of all induction and training, which will also help you to identify any refresher training. Training can vary from a brief discussion, on policy or procedures through to the employee attending a formal course where certificates of attendance or achievement are issued. In this case, copies of any certificates should be kept on employee's records.

Training needs will vary depending on the level of hazards and risks associated with your organisation. Working patterns and methods are continually evolving and new hazards are introduced. A recent example is the increased occurrence of lone working. Later on in the workbook we will provide a worked example of a risk assessment on lone working that could be a good starting point.

An example of how to record training received by employees is below: