Tailor-made Policies, Procedures and Risk Assessments
Some companies fail to carry out risk assessments as they don’t feel they have the expertise. However, don’t overlook it and bury your head in the sand. Our solicitors can help you create accurate and tailor-made policies, procedures and risk assessments for your business.
Ensuring the health and safety of you and your employees is really this simple.
Your business may require tailor-made policies, procedures and risk assessment to ensure that the health and safety policy is effective for their business.
For example, all businesses are different and all will identify particular hazards and risks, personal to their business. Therefore, it’s important the policies, procedures and risk assessments reflect this.
Our solicitors can help you:
- Undertake workplace risk assessments on activities and premises
- Train and coach employees to complete risk assessments
- Create task instructions and safe working procedures
- Audit review and monitor your existing risk assessments and procedures
- Ensure all employees are aware of the health and safety policies, procedures and risk assessments, and that they abide by them.
Important things to consider:
- The Management of Health and Safety at Work (MHSW) Regulations 1999 require all employers and the self-employed to assess the risks from their work on anyone who may be affected by their activities.
- You must review your risk assessments regularly to ensure they remain valid. Also, it allows you to update the policy with any new risks you identify.
- A comprehensive risk assessment can save time and money.
Support and guidance with every stage
Depending on your business, a general health and safety policy will only cover the basics. A health and safety audit is beneficial as it identifies the individuals risks of the premises for a specific business. This makes it more effective. For more bespoke cover a tailor made policy could, for example, cover:
- Environmental Policy
- Fire Safety Policy
- CDM Policy
- Employee Alcohol and Drugs Policy
- Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Policy
- Accident and Investigation Policy
- Incident Reporting Policy
- Workplace Violence Policy
- Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Policy
Every company with five or more employees must have a written risk assessment. They identify the hazards, associated risks, persons at risk, existing control measures and practical suggestions on additional measures your business may require. Moreover, these are all dependant on the workplace and types of tasks you do, equipment in use such as plant and machinery and the type of people you employ e.g. young, old, vulnerable etc. Additionally, an employer or a third party monitors the risk assessment which should be kept up to date and accessible for employees to look at. It includes everything that could go wrong (hazards and risks) in relation to your company’s work activities and the business premises. Furthermore, it outlines what action should be taken to either eliminate or reduce the risk.
It’s extremely important to carry out risk assessments in order to protect yourself, your employees, your customers and your organisation from danger. Also, it is a legal requirement and therefore not doing so can lead to serious consequences.
In order to identify risk of injury a business needs to carry out a variety of risk assessments. This includes;
- Lone Working
- Office
- COSHH Assessments
- Manual Handling
- DSE Assessments
- DDA Assessments
- Working at Height
- Confined Spaces
- Permits to Work
- New and Expectant Mothers
- Shift Working
- Premises and Workplace
- Young Persons
- Fire
- Noise
- Driving