Health and safety for business – How to prevent accidents

Many firms have been fined millions of pounds in the last year for health and safety breaches. Preventative steps include appointing a health and safety champion, creating a clear health and safety policy, establishing a health and safety protocol, conducting a risk assessment and protecting employee health and wellbeing. Contact the Health and Safety Executive or a solicitor if you’re unsure on what you need to do.

Small businesses are sidelining their health and safety strategies. Over two-fifths of SMEs regularly or occasionally get behind on health and safety tasks, and nearly half say one or more of their key health and safety documents are out of date, according to our research at Breathe HR. 

It’s understandable why this is happening. Company budgets are tight, and steering through new workers’ rights is rightly taking up most of the HR oxygen in businesses right now. Plus, the nature of the work unfortunately means it might not be the HR task people jump to tackle first, so it can end up getting overlooked until something bad happens and you really need it. However, handling health and safety correctly is essential and must be a priority for new and established businesses. 

When it goes wrong, it can damage a company’s reputation, harm employee morale and cost businesses millions. In just the last year alone, the Health and Safety Executive fined Cambridgeshire County Council £6 million, British Airways £3 million, and Biffa Waste £2.5 million. Many other firms were also fined. 

To keep workers safe and well, protect your company’s reputation, and avoid eye-watering fines, businesses must act now to establish robust health and safety policies and practices. Here’s how: 

1. Appoint a health and safety champion 

This is a requirement under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Some small business owners may want to take on this responsibility themselves, while others may prefer to appoint another member of staff. What leaders choose to do is up to them; what matters is that the person appointed is ‘competent’ and everyone in the organisation knows who holds the position. If your business operates across multiple sites, someone should also be appointed to look after day-to-day responsibilities at each location. 

In some circumstances, for example, when a more technical or legal health and safety issue has arisen, business leaders may wish to look for external experts for guidance. 

2. Create a clear health and safety policy

Next, businesses should create a clear health and safety policy which sets out how employees should act to keep everyone safe and what they should do in the event of an emergency, injury or fire. It should also explain where first aid kits are kept and the names of the company’s trained first aiders. 

To ensure your policy is clear and easy for everyone to understand, make sure to write it in plain language and keep it brief. Lengthy policies filled with jargon or overly formal language can put employees off. It might result in them only skimming the document and missing important details. 

Once you’ve established your policy, make sure to regularly review and update it. Including a ‘last updated’ date in your policy document will help you to keep track of this. The policy should then be stored somewhere that’s easily accessible, so it can be found quickly and referred back to when it’s needed, for example, during an emergency or an inspection. 

Staff members should also be given training to ensure they know the health and safety protocols laid out in the policy.

3. Establish an incident reporting protocol

Businesses should also set up a clear procedure for reporting health and safety incidents and near misses. These reports should then be organised and stored somewhere accessible, so they remain in use and are easy to refer back to. 

HR software with a health and safety function can help with this. It allows you to easily track all your incidents in one place and get a bird’s-eye view of what exactly is going on. The tech also makes it easy to spot and flag any recurring issues, so you can take steps to prevent future accidents. 

4. Conduct a risk assessment 

Under UK law, businesses are expected to reduce health and safety risks as far as is reasonably practicable. It is therefore essential that businesses conduct regular risk assessments and workplace checks to understand their site’s potential risks. For example, looking for any physical hazards that could put employees in danger, like cleaning fluids, loose cables or faulty electrical equipment. 

Once you’ve identified these hazards, put controls in place to help address them. This might include requiring employees to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) when they’re performing certain tasks or introducing physical controls such as barriers. You should also keep walkways clear and well-lit and ensure the first aid box is fully stocked. These preventative measures should be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure they remain as effective as possible. 

5. Protect employee mental health and wellbeing

Businesses must also take steps to manage their teams’ work-related stress and protect their mental health. This falls under health and safety. 

To do this, employers should ensure staff workloads remain manageable and encourage staff to leverage their annual leave throughout the year. Employers should also cultivate a culture of psychological safety and carve out moments where staff can, and feel able to, have open conversations with managers about any wellbeing issues they’re currently experiencing. Managers should then be trained to handle conversations about mental health with sensitivity and to signpost struggling employees to the correct support. 

Businesses who create robust health and safety policies and protocols, and foster a culture of risk prevention, will be able to stay compliant, avoid fines, and keep their teams safe and supported. 

Phil Coxon is managing director at Breathe HR.

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