Category : Health & Safety

The new Construction Design and Management (CDM) Regulations 2015 are now in force. Statistically there are more injuries and fatalities on smaller, previously unregulated building projects than on larger ones. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has decided to address this issue by requiring all projects to have someone overseeing health, safety and welfare in both the pre-start and construction phases.What does the Builder need to know?

From 6th April 2015, every job, including domestic work, will now require a CDM Principal Contractor (PC) who will take overall control for the day-to-day running of the project. This is the same whether you are a building company with in-house tradesmen or a one-man band that brings in traders as needed. Someone will have to be appointed by the client as Principal Contractor.

The builder – now called the Principal Contractor has a range of duties to fulfil on all projects, large or small, including:

•  The builder must prepare a Construction Phase Health and Safety Plan.The builder needs to be certain that the contractors they employ are competent, not only to do their job, but from a health and safety perspective as well. Price is always an important factor, but the Principal Contractor will need to be happy that the chosen subbie is able to carry out their works safely without making shortcuts.

• The Principal Contractor will need to make sure that someone responsible is on site at all times, for example, a trusted sub-contractor foreman. No matter who is left in charge – the Principal Contractor is responsible if they allow shortcuts to   be taken or the agreed procedures to be bypassed.

For more detailed information on the Principal Contractor’s duties please click here for our Simply-Docs information page on Construction (Design & Management) (CDM) Regulations 2015 for Builders.

What does the Client need to know?

Under the regulations, non-domestic clients will have much more direct responsibility than before.  In addition, some building works that you may have assumed would be regarded as “domestic” will now fall within the scope of the regulations. A “non-domestic client” is a person or a company who is having the works done as part of a commercial enterprise. That could be a business building, a new factory or office extension, or a residential or commercial landlord refitting some of their rental properties. Building an office at the end of your garden in order to work from home would make you a non-domestic client. As a rule: if the client will get a business income from the works, they are a non-domestic client.

The practical impact of these regulations is that non-domestic clients will now have even more legal duties in respect of health and safety on-site and more clients will fall into the non-domestic category.

The non-domestic client’s new duties include:

•  The client is now required to make sure that health and safety has been factored into the project, and that sufficient funding has been allowed in the budget for this.

•  The client must appoint, in writing, a Principal Designer (PD) to oversee the design and planning of the project, to put in place all the health and safety procedures, and to create (or at least organise) the Health and Safety File.

•  The client must ensure that both the PD and PC are competent to carry out their role.

If the client doesn’t appoint either a PD or PC, the duties of both will become the client’s by default, so it really is in the client’s best interest to surround themselves with suitably qualified professionals to help them through the process.

The client has many additional duties, for more information on these duties, please click here for our Simply-Docs information page on What Duties Does The Client Have Under The CDM Regulations 2015?

The new Construction Design and Management Regulations 2015 (CDM) are expected to come into force from 6th April 2015.  Previously, if you were a domestic client having building work done, this would have little impact on you, as you would probably expect the builder to take responsibility for health and safety on the project. Now, once the new legislation is in place, more clients are likely to fall under the banner of “non-domestic client” and subject to a raft of additional health and safety responsibilities.For example, if you are contemplating having a workshop or garden office built at the end of your garden, or perhaps you are a residential landlord refitting a rental property, then under this new legislation you will be a “non-domestic client” and subject to the increased health and safety duties that that entails.

As a rule – if you are getting a business income from the works, then you will be having the works done as part of a commercial enterprise and you will be deemed a non-domestic client.

CDM Regulations Explained: Why Are the Changes Being Made?

Statistically there are more injuries and fatalities on smaller, previously unregulated building projects than on larger ones. The HSE has decided to address this issue by requiring all projects to have someone overseeing health, safety and welfare, in both the pre-start and construction phases.

Accordingly, the aim of the CDM Regs. 2015 is to place increased responsibility on the three main parties in a building project – the client, the designer and the builder. The practical impact of these regulations is that non-domestic clients will now have even more legal duties in respect of health and safety on site and more clients will fall into the non-domestic category.

One of the new duties is that the non-domestic client will be required to make sure that health and safety has been factored into their project, and that sufficient funding has been allowed in the budget for such health and safety considerations – and there are many more.

For more information on the CDM Regs. 2015 please see the Simply-Docs information pages.

What is the new legislation?It’s possible that you may have missed the recent new law on allergen labelling for food and drink products sold to consumers. From 13th December 2014 strict new rules apply to how businesses must notify consumers about food and drink products containing allergens. The Regulations include a list of 14 allergen groups and the presence of any of these listed allergens in the food product must be clearly communicated to the consumer. It’s estimated that over 2 million people in the UK have a food allergy, and the new legislation is designed to make it easier for consumers to make safe food choices when buying food and eating out.

This may mean considerable changes to the way you run your food business at the moment but you really can’t afford to ignore these changes as the penalties include fines and criminal prosecution.

What products do the rules apply to?

The rules apply to prepacked food, non-prepacked food and food that is prepacked for direct sale to consumers such as in a deli or canteen, so most Food Business Operators are going to be affected by these new Regulations. The Regulations also apply to the use of processing aids which contain an allergen from the list of 14 allergen groups, such as wheat flour used to roll out dough made from rye flour. So as well as reviewing your own labelling procedures you also need to ensure that your suppliers are providing you with the necessary information on their products.

For some businesses providing non-prepacked food it is possible to give the information to consumers orally. This should make compliance with the Regulations easier to cope with for some businesses. For more information on the provision of allergen notification orally please click here for Allergen Notification Requirements For Businesses Providing Non-prepacked Foods.

What should you do now?

If you have not yet acted on these Regulations you need to act fast and Simply-docs can help you with this by providing;

• Free information on what you need to do, including a detailed list of the 14 key allergen groups. Click here for Simply-docs free information pages on allergen notification.

A Simply-docs subscription will give you access to;

• Guidance Notes to take you through the issues to consider click here.

• An Allergen Policy  click here.

• Simply-docs also provides key templates to use on a day to day basis to manage and monitor the allergens present in your food products, for a Recipe Allergen Checklist, a Supplier Allergen Checklist and a Delivered Product – Supplier Notification of Allergens Form click here.

Simply-docs documents are easy to use and as well as helping you to establish good legal compliance procedures we also have straight forward templates that can be used on a day to day basis to manage and monitor your processes. A subscription to Simply-docs includes the above documents and also gives you access to thousands of straight forward business documents in 5 portfolios; Business, Corporate, Employment, Property and Health and Safety. To download any of these documents click here if you already subscribe to Simply-Docs or to get started today, register with Simply-Docs by clicking here.

We always welcome suggestions for new documents for our site, so do let us know if there are additional allergen related documents that would help out your business. We will give our full consideration to any new document suggestions.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, 27 million working days were lost last year in the UK through illness or injury caused by an event at their workplace.In this context, it’s easy to argue that effective Health and Safety Management is at the core of workplace productivity. Not only that, but if you are a business owner you have a legal responsibility for the health and safety of everyone in your workplace.

Despite this, managing workplace Health and Safety does not need to be as complicated as it may first seem. In fact, by keeping the following five steps in mind you can make the task simple.

Step One: Let Simply-Docs Provide A Helping Hand

To help you create effective Health and Safety management, we’ve created A Guide To Making Health & Safety Simple. In this guide, we’ve broken down the basics of managing workplace Health and Safety step by step and in a way that is clear and easy to understand.

Step Two: Write A Clear Health and Safety Policy

Writing a policy is a great way to start creating a culture of workplace Health and Safety compliance. This is because it defines a set of rules and a clear direction for the employees of your business to follow.

Moreover, writing a clear Health and Safety policy indicates to your staff that you take their well-being seriously. In turn, this can help encourage the adoption of good working practices that have a positive impact upon all areas of your business’s performance.

Step three: Adopt A Systematic Approach To Minimising Risks

The biggest aim of your business’s Health and Safety policy should be to manage risk. In order minimise risks, first you will need to identify them.

To do this you will need to perform a risk assessment of your workplace. Our notes ‘How to Carry Out A Risk Assessment’ will help you with this. Once you have done that, you can ask your employees for their input, as they may notice something you miss.

After you have completed a risk assessment of your business, you can start planning the measures needed to control or ideally eliminate potential risks – for example, introducing new facilities, equipment or tweaking your processes. If risks cannot be controlled through different equipment or a change of the process, you may need to consider introducing protective clothing – PPE.

Make sure that you record the information in one of our Risk Assessment documents and keep a log of every work-related accident or illness, as this will help with spotting any trends.

Step Four: Communicate With Your Employees

Communicating with your employees about health and safety is a legal requirement, but it’s also a great idea, as often they will know more about what goes on in the workplace than you do. In addition, involving your staff in matters regarding health and safety will help to motivate them to work safely and avoid accidents.

Training should form a major part of your Health and Safety-related communications in the workplace. In order for your employees to receive the training that benefits them the most, you may want to consider asking them their opinion on how they think the training should be provided.

Providing your staff with training and communicating with them on a regular basis will help develop a common understanding of the expectation for Health and Safety compliance in your workplace.

Step Five: Review Your Performance

A regular review of your workplace’s overall performance allows you to establish whether your approach to Health and Safety management has been effective.

No workplace stays the same. Whether it’s a change of processes, the use of different equipment or a changeover in staff, things will inevitably change over time. Therefore, reviewing your performance allows you to assess whether the Health and Safety policy reflects your current working environment.

Referring to your risk assessment document and accident book should also be a vital part of reviewing your performance. Reviewing both of these documents will allow you to evaluate the success of the measures you have put in place to manage risk and identify areas where you need to improve.

Do You Need More Help Managing Workplace Health & Safety?

If you find the administrative side of Health and Safety compliance daunting, the Simply-Docs portfolio of business and legal templates can help. Using our portfolio of professionally drafted documents is a cost effective solution for implementing workplace Health and Safety guidelines with speed and accuracy.

So if you need help structuring a Health and Safety Policy/risk assessment, or you need access to template documents for other Health and Safety procedures such as hygiene and fire safety, let Simply-Docs provide a helping hand.

All you need to do is register with Simply-Docs today, subscribe to our Health & Safety document folder for just £35.00 (+ VAT) and then you enjoy a year’s unlimited access to every Health & Safety document template you will need.

If you work in the catering or restaurant business it is vital that you get the correct documentation together beforehand. Ensuring your team is up to date on current practices and being able to prove this to anyone who asks is vitally important. Collecting this paperwork and keeping it safe is a great resource for your business and something you can refer back to when employing new recruits. We’ve given you a list of our top documents to download in relation to Food Hygiene and listed some of the reasons as to why they can benefit you.

Food Hygiene Documents

To implement good food hygiene practice it is important that you keep records of food hygiene guidance notes, temperature logs, cleaning and pest control records. These are just some of the documents available from us that will reduce risk in your workplace. Finding yourself on the wrong side of food hygiene regulations and laws can incur hefty fines, penalties and face closure. The biggest issues lie with the manager of the business as, if they are successfully prosecuted, they can be banned from running another food establishment or even face a prison sentence. As you can see, having this paperwork in order is of high importance to ensure the best possible standards are met and adhered to. To ensure good practice is met you can download this documentation for just £35+VAT.

Kitchen Risk Assessment Forms

Risk assessment is part of everyday life; we constantly assess a situation to figure out the risk or threat to us. Kitchen Risk assessment forms are used by businesses in the food industry to assess the safety of their workplace for its staff and employers. These forms can be downloaded to prevent accidents and make sure the business is in compliance with the relevant health and safety legislation. These documents are also a preventative measure; it’s an ongoing way to prevent loss, damage and injury in the kitchen.

Hygiene Hazard Analysis Forms (HHACR)

HHACR forms are relevant and helpful documents that allow you to manage and eliminate any food hygiene risks. These documents are relevant for the preparation of salads, smoothies, juices as well as hot and chilled food. Implementing a catering risk assessment and action plan, for example, is a great way to keep track of hygiene hazards in the kitchen. These documents give you the opportunity to successfully overview how you run your kitchen as well as how you as a company deal with hygiene hazards.

All of these helpful documents are available to you from Simply Docs at competitive prices. Make your job easier and download all the information you need here.

We’ve all heard the ridiculous stories of things being banned or changed under the banner of ‘health and safety’, but are all these things true? Many bizarre changes attributed to health and safety are actually down to personal choice rather than official regulations. HSE (Health and Safety Executive) has set up a Myth Busters Challenge Panel to shed light on which rules are sincere and which are either greatly exaggerated or blatantly untrue.

Below, we’ve compiled five of the best health and safety myths:

1) No Goggles, No Conkers!

Stories of schools banning pupils from playing conkers first hit the news some years back, causing many people to blame health and safety laws for ruining a long-held tradition. However, HSE has no official mandate on playing conkers—they recommend that common sense should prevail, and believe children deliberately hitting each other with conkers is a disciplinary issue, not a health and safety one. While goggles are an effective precaution for those concerned about damage to the eyes during a game, this is a personal choice rather than regulation.

2) Want Christmas Decorations in the Workplace? Yule be Lucky!

HSE often receives complaints about companies refusing to allow their employees to decorate the workplace for the festive season, citing “health and safety risks”. While Christmas decorations may not be to the taste of the management, there is no need for such bans from a regulatory standpoint—employees should exercise caution where step ladders, scissors, glue and other items are required, but good judgement and caution should be relied upon where appropriate.

3) Do Trapeze Artists need Hard Hats?

While this story gained widespread attention when it was first reported way back in 2003, this is one of HSE’s top myths. While it’s certainly ridiculous enough to be believable, there were never any regulations requiring trapeze artists to don hard hats whilst performing. Besides, surely the prospect of a solid hat falling towards the spectators would prove a larger H&S issue?

4) Is the Traditional Tie too Dangerous for Schoolchildren?

Another story involving H&S at school involved claims of the traditional tie being too dangerous for children, with calls for clip-ons to be worn instead. While there’s some likelihood that two children fighting may actually grab each other’s tie or indulge in ‘peanutting’, HSE is keen to point out that, as with the conkers, this is down to discipline rather than specific H&S issues.

5) Flip-flops in the Workplace: Fatal or Fun?

Working in an office during the summer can be horrendous if there are no desk fans or the air-conditioning is on the blink—to stay cool, most people choose to wear shorts, sleeveless tops or even flip-flops. However, there are some reports that health and safety regulations forbid flip-flops on the grounds of them proving risky. Is this true? Of course not. Whatever the footwear, employees need to be sure they have a good grip, and—where possible—floors are kept dry and clean.
At Simply-Docs, we have a wide range of Health & Safety document templates and legal documents available for download, all of which will help you and your employees stay abreast of all (real) relevant health and safety regulations in your specific work environment.

There’s no doubting that conditions are tough for UK businesses right now. Costs are high, credit is hard to access and, in many sectors, demand remains subdued.

However, this is not a reason to skimp on safety. There may be certain areas that your firm can cut back on, but protecting the well-being of your personnel isn’t one of them. Lapses in risk management can lead to devastating consequences and it’s not worth taking the chance.

The human cost

It’s impossible to put a price tag on the human suffering than can result from safety lapses. People can suffer painful and lasting physical damage and their lives may even be placed at risk. As well as those directly involved in workplace accidents, victims’ families may also pay a hefty price.

In addition, if a preventable accident was to occur within your organisation, you’d have to live with the guilt.

Legal action

Then there is the potential for legal action to consider. If you don’t live up to your responsibilities as an employer and someone is hurt as a result, you might face a court case or even criminal prosecution. Also, the individuals involved may decide to make a personal injury claim against you.

All of a sudden any savings you made by avoiding safety measures may pale into insignificance. In the worst case scenarios, your organisation could face financial ruin.

Reputation

It’s also important to consider your organisation’s reputation. If it emerges that you neglected your safety duties, your image is bound to suffer, and this could have long-term consequences in terms of your customer base.

Make your life easier

If you’re determined to avoid these problems and maintain rigorous health and safety policies, we can help. Here at Simply-Docs we know how important it is to uphold high standards and our Health and Safety Documents Folder could help you to achieve this.

It contains a wide range of professionally drafted and simple to edit health and safety documents that facilitate the management of this issue. The templates include risk assessment forms, health and safety statements and much more.

More details

For a small fee, you can subscribe to this folder and, for the period of a year, you will be able to download any of our health and safety templates at any time. This unlimited download access includes form updates and additions, meaning you will always be fully up-to-date.

Structure

Having these forms at your disposal can help you to achieve structure in terms of your health and safety procedures. A lot of risk management is simple common sense, but it helps to know exactly where you should be focusing your attention. Especially when you have lots of other issues on your mind, it’s easy to overlook crucial safety points.

However, with the aid of our document templates, you should be able to stay on track.

If you’d like more information about our services, just take a look around the rest of our website or get in touch with our friendly and helpful team by phone or email.

If your firm is feeling the financial pinch, you might be looking for ways to save cash. Indeed, there are bound to be certain areas in which you can cut back. However, make sure safety isn’t one of them.

Regardless of how much pressure your organisation is under, it’s vital that you don’t skimp on health and safety. If you do, the consequences could be disastrous both for your personnel and for the future of your company.

Your responsibilities

Under UK laws, you’re required to meet certain minimum standards of risk management and, if you fall beneath these, you’ll face potentially serious repercussions.

Also, even one lapse in your health and safety systems could result in accidents that cause serious harm to your workers. Dealing with the human suffering and feelings of guilt associated with incidents like this is extremely tough.

A savvy approach

Thankfully, there are ways in which you can ensure the quality of your health and safety systems with optimum efficiency. For example, here at Simply-Docs we offer a range of health and safety documents that can help you to fulfil your obligations, protect your personnel and remain on the right side of the law.

The documents include up-to-date templates such as health and safety policies and risk assessment forms and they represent superb value for money. For only £35 plus VAT, you can download any template in the Health and Safety Document Folder at any time over a one-year period. This unlimited download access includes updates and additions for the duration of the subscription.

Making your life easier

As well as helping to ensure your processes are as effective and efficient as possible, these templates can also make your life easier. You’ll have peace of mind that you’re conforming to the law and you’ll benefit from additional guidance and information.

To check out our health and safety documents, and to see the rest of our document templates, just take a look around our website.

Health and safety in the spotlight

If ever you need reminding of the significance of effective risk management, just take a look at the figures provided by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which reveal that, over the period from April 2011 to March 2012, a total of 173 workers were fatally injured.

Meanwhile, there were 22,433 major injuries such as amputations, fractures and burns and employees suffered 88,731 other injuries serious enough to keep them off work for four or more days. In addition, an estimated 1.1 million individuals said they were suffering from an illness caused or made worse by their work.

Commenting in a press release towards the end of 2012, Chair of HSE, Judith Hackitt noted that “Britain has earned the reputation of being one of the safest places in Europe to work, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.”

Organisation is key

The key to effective health and safety management is organisation. As long as you use the right documents and stick to systematic and thorough policies, you should be able to keep control of this aspect of your firm – and our document templates should make this task easier.

Of course, the primary goal of any business is making money, so this is likely to be one of your top priorities. However, there are also other issues that you can’t afford to ignore. For example, you have an obligation to protect the wellbeing of your workers.

These days, there are stringent laws in place governing this issue and if you fall foul of them, you could find yourself in serious trouble. As well as risking your personnel, you may also find yourself subject to long and costly legal proceedings.

Help is at hand

At first, adhering to health and safety laws can seem like a daunting task. However, help is at hand. By using our services here at Simply-docs you can take advantage of a range of document templates that should help you conform to all the relevant legislation.

Having access to these documents can make your life easier, boost your peace of mind and help protect you from potentially serious problems further down the line.

HSE stats

If ever you need reminding of the significance of these laws, you can turn to figures provided by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Last autumn, the organisation revealed that between April 2011 and March 2012 a total of 22,433 major injuries such as amputations, fractures and burns occurred among employees in the UK.

Meanwhile, 88,731 other injuries serious enough to keep people off work for four or more days were reported during the 12-month period. The HSE also revealed that around 1.1 million individuals said they were suffering from an illness caused or made worse by their occupation.

Most seriously, 173 workers were fatally injured over the course of the year.

The right direction

However, as alarming as these statistics may seem, they represent a fall from the previous 12-month period and the five-year average, showing that improvements in workplace health and safety are being made.

Focus

Commenting on the figures, HSE chair Judith Hackitt said: “Britain has earned the reputation of being one of the safest places in Europe to work, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. We need to ensure that we all focus on managing the real risks which lead to serious workplace harm.

“HSE remains committed to helping employers understand what they need to do to ensure workers can go home from their jobs safe and well without creating unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy.”

Take a look

If you think you could benefit from the health and safety forms we provide, just take a look around the relevant section of our website. The health and safety documents folder contains a wide range of professionally drafted and simple to edit document templates that can help facilitate the management and control of risk in the workplace. It includes risk assessment forms and health and safety statements and policies.

Like all of our templates, these documents represent superb value for money and they are easy to use. With our help, adhering to safety laws should be straightforward.

If your company employs five or more people then you are required by law under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to have a written health & safety policy. This document contains your statement of general policy on health and safety at work as well as the organisation and arrangements you have in place for putting that policy effectively into practice. In addition, a health and safety policy also contains many other notes and references for further information.

Like many other small business owners and entrepreneurs, you may have little experience of drawing up health and safety documents. And, if you only employ a relatively small number of people, you may well find your collective capability to write such a policy to be just as limited as yours alone.

Fortunately we here at Simply-docs can be of great assistance in this respect as we are able to provide downloadable health and safety document templates which can help you to devise and develop your own comprehensive policy.

Comprehensive Policy
Quite simply, your health and safety policy needs to clearly state who does what, when and how.
To this end, your policy needs to include and address the following aspects:
• Health and safety policy statement – Statement of general policy, signed and dated.
• Responsibilities – overall, day-to-day, specific areas.
• Health and safety risks – what they are, what action is needed to remove/control them, who is responsible, time for review?
• Consultation with employees – who are your employee’s representatives, who provides consultation?
• Safe plant and equipment – who is responsible for identifying when maintenance is required, who draws up maintenance procedures, who should problems be reported to, who purchases new equipment?
• Safe handling and use of substances – who identifies hazardous substances, who is responsible for undertaking COSHH assessments, informing employees, reviewing assessments?
• Information, instruction and supervision – where is the Health and Safety Law Poster displayed and/or who issues the equivalent leaflets, who supervises and trains new staff members?
• Competency for tasks and training – who provides induction training, job specific training, keeps training records?
• Accidents, first aid and work related ill health – who requires, arranges and keep records of health surveillance, where is the first aid equipment stored, who is the appointed person/designated first aider, who keeps records, who is responsible for reporting incidents relevant to RIDDOR?
• Monitoring – who monitors conditions and safe working practices, who investigates accidents and work related sickness?
• Emergency procedures – who carries out fire risk assessments, how often are things like escape routes, fire extinguishers, alarms and evacuation procedures checked?