Health and safety policy

Our health and safety policy statement is an essential document to outline your general policy regarding the health and safety at work of your employees. As it’s a statutory requirement for most employers to have a health and safety policy statement, ensure you include it in your staff handbook.

Protecting health and safety

Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, you have a duty to prepare (and, if necessary, revise) a written statement of your general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of your employees and the organisation and arrangements for carrying out that policy. In addition, you must bring this information to the attention of all of your employees, for example, by giving them a copy and then displaying it on your staff notice board. The length and complexity of your policy statement will really depend on the nature of your business and the activities it undertakes. Our Health and Safety Policy statement is of a general nature and is therefore intended to apply to relatively low risk work environments. If your business undertakes higher risk activities, for example involving personal protective equipment, the use of chemicals, heavy lifting and carrying, using dangerous machinery, etc., you will probably want to augment our policy statement with more detailed provisions covering the specific areas of concern to you from a health and safety perspective.

Exemption

Employers who carry on businesses which employ fewer than five employees are exempted from the requirement to produce a health and safety policy statement. That said, it’s always best practice for all employers to have one because your employers’ liability insurers will want to see a copy of it should there be an accident at work which results in a claim being brought by an employee for negligence or breach of health and safety legislation.