Health and safety policy

An employer with five or more employees must have a written health and safety policy and must bring it to the attention of its staff. This is the full policy, set out in the three parts the Health and Safety Executive expects: what the business intends to do, who is responsible for doing it, and how it is done in practice.

It is not the short signed statement of general policy that goes on the wall. That is a separate and much shorter document, and both are needed.

Part 3 is the part that gets read

The arrangements section is where a policy is either accurate or worthless. Work through it with whoever runs the premises. Complete every bracketed detail, delete the optional clauses covering work the business does not do, and add anything it does that is not already covered.

A policy describing a workplace you do not have is worse than no policy, because it tells an inspector that nobody checked. Manual handling arrangements in a business that lifts nothing, or a lone working section in a business where nobody works alone, have the same effect as the opposite omission.

What the three parts contain

Part 1 is the statement of intent: the commitment and the scope. Part 2 sets out organisation and responsibilities, from the directors down through managers and supervisors to the competent person, first aiders, appointed persons and fire marshals, and the responsibilities of everyone else. It includes a table naming a person against each duty, which is the part most often left blank and the part most often asked for.

Part 3 covers the arrangements: risk assessments, consultation, information, instruction and training, first aid, fire safety, display screen equipment including home workers, manual handling, electrical safety, the workplace and welfare facilities, lone working and driving for work.

Keep it with the assessments it refers to

The policy points at risk assessments, including the fire risk assessment, and those have to exist and be current. Make the whole set available to everyone who works for the business, including home workers and anyone taken on temporarily.

Review at least once a year, and again after any significant change: new premises, new equipment, a new process, a serious accident, or a change in the people named in Part 2. Where the business works at height, with machinery, with vehicles, with vulnerable people, or in a licensed or regulated sector, take advice before adopting it.