Review your health and safety policy

by constructaquote - 1 June 2016

Did you know that if you have more than five employees you must have a written health and safety policy by law?

Having a policy helps you assess and mitigate any risks to you and your staff and by demonstrating a commitment to health and safety and good risk management, in the long run you may find your premiums remain lower when seeking competitive business insurance cover.

Every health and safety policy needs to be reviewed regularly so if you haven’t taken a look at your own for a while, take five minutes to review your policy and check out our tips below to make sure it’s up to date.

1. Check the person responsible for health and safety is still competent

For a business with five or more employees, by law you must identify a competent person to help you with health and safety in the workplace. This could be the business owner themselves, a named colleague or an outside consultant, depending on the business.

For most small businesses the business owner might usually manage health and safety, but external advisers may be needed for businesses in manufacturing or construction or where other more complex risks to safety are present. The HSE have produced guidance on how to choose an external adviser.

2. Review your risks to health and safety before you revise your policy

Reviewing health and safety requires good observation of all the risks in the workplace. It’s much better to start afresh than to work from an old document because the chances are that you’ll see new risks that the earlier policy didn’t cover. Get a checklist and walk through the workplace assessing risks one by one.

3. Assess risks to health and safety policy in your workplace

There are many general risks that are probably common to all businesses such as fire and slips, trips and falls, but there are also likely to be risks specific to your business and to the people who work for you.

Health and Safety Executive has a wealth of information and resources for conducting risk assessments, including checklists for different industries that may even help you to identify specific risks for your business.

4. Review your policy with your risk assessment to hand

Now that you have carried out a risk assessment it’s time to review your written policy. For a model policy, again take a look at the HSE website where you can download a template and then just fill in your own general and specific risk assessment details.

5. Check your insurance policy is up to date and gives you the right level of cover

You need to display your business insurance certificates on your business premises – including your employee liability cover, public liability cover and any other business liability cover you may have.

Accidents can happen anywhere and at anytime but practising good health and safety can help to minimise the risk. Now your policy is up to date, why not call constructaquote.com to find out more about Business Insurance cover.

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