Safe and Healthy

Stephen Gardiner PGDip, BSc (Hons)

Health and Safety Officer for The Institute of Chiropodists and Podiatrists

Health and Safety doesn’t have to be a headache.  A little planning and simple measures will ensure that your clinic policy passes any health check, and you may even boost productivity and staff morale as a result.  Also remember by conducting a Health and Safety audit can be used as part of your CPD.

Mention the words health and safety to many people and they might stifle a yawn, but ensuring that you have robust health and safety procedures is a legal requirement for any business with five or more employees, however it is good practice to have a Health and Safety policy in place for those that have less than five employees.  Those who fail to protect the health and safety of their staff and other people – such as customers and members of the public – can be fined or even risk being sent to prison.

In 2008 to 2009, 29.3 million work days were lost due to health and safety-related issues.  Some 24.6 million of these were due to work-related ill health, and 4.7 million were a result of workplace injury, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Fortunately, setting up a health and safety policy is far less of a trail than some may first expect.  All it takes is a little planning and regular reviewing to ensure it is robust and up to date.  Having a healthy and safe workplace can even help your bottom line, whether by reducing the cost of your liability insurance, or by reducing worker sick rates and boosting staff productivity and morale.

For starters

A good place to start if you’re looking for guidance and a source of information is the HSE, Britain’s national regular for workplace safety and health.  Its website – www.hse.gov.uk – gives information including case studies of how different types of businesses have complied with health and safety rules.  It also has a ‘myth of the month’ page, in a bid to counter misleading assumptions and press reports about health and safety.

Risk assessment

One of the key parts of a health and safety policy is risk assessment.  This involves assessing all the potential risks in a workplace, ranging from injuries caused by machinery to slipping on a spilled drink on the stairs.  Once they’ve all be identified, you must find ways to either eliminate or control them to ensure healthy and safe conditions are maintained until people reach safety, or the danger is averted.

A lot of businesses get anxious about the whole concept of risk assessment around health and safety; you see it mentioned in the press all the time as a big bugbear, but it’s really quite a straightforward process.

A pub’s risk assessment, for example, would include walking around the premises to note any things that might be dangerous or present a potential hazard, checking the accident book for any previous health and safety incidents, and making sure that deliveries of food and drink meet health and safety standards.

Compiling a policy

After doing a risk assessment of your business, the next step is to compile a written health and safety policy.

This needn’t be a complicated document, and should simply explain to staff and others how you implement and monitor your health and safety controls.  This should then be signed by the manager or chief executive, dated and on display.

Health and safety legislation is normally reviewed twice a year, so make sure you review your policy at least annually. 

Key considerations

Another important, but often overlooked, requirement is making sure you have sufficient fire wardens and staff who are trained in first aid. 

Employers also need to sort out health and safety insurance – employer’s liability insurance – to protect them from any compensation claims from staff that are injured or become ill because of their work.

You also have a duty to record any relevant details of workplace accidents in an accident book, and keep them on record for least three years.  If an accident occurs, however small, you need to record the full name, address and occupation of the injured person, the date and time of the accident, where it happened, and the cause and nature of any injury.  Near misses should also be reported and investigated, since they may have caused injury in slightly different circumstances.

Employers ignore health and safety regulations at their peril.  Fortunately, there is plenty of advice and support available on the subject, making compliance with rules less of a headache.