Health and Safety
We enforce health and safety law in offices, shops, warehouses, places used for leisure activities and other non-industrial premises. (The Health and Safety Executive deal with factories and other industrial operations). This ensures that safe and healthy working conditions are provided for all employees, the self-employed and members of the public visiting these premises.
Health and Safety Inspections
As with food safety, inspections are carried out on a routine basis and the high risk and/or poor premises are visited more frequently.
During an inspection, we will need to be satisfied that any problems found that affect people's health, safety and welfare have been identified and any associated risks adequately controlled. They will look at health and safety training of managers and employees to ensure that it is suitable. Checks will also be made to ensure the environmental conditions are suitable and that plant and equipment are safe.
Where work practices or conditions contravene Health & Safety law every attempt will be made to resolve the situation by informal means, but if this is not possible, or if the danger posed gives rise to a risk of serious personal injury, then we will take formal action. This could involve either the serving legal notices, prosecution, or in situations where serious personal injury could arise, a prohibition notice requiring immediate action.
Priority Topic Inspections
When we visit a place of work we will assess how the business occupier is managing risks to employees and other who may be affected by what they do. We will concentrate on those things which are most likely to kill, injure and make people ill, these are known as priority topics.
The HSE website www.hse.gov.uk has a whole section dedicated to priority topics at present which are deemed to be the 5 most common causes of accidents these are:
1. Slips, Trips & Falls
2. Falls from Heights
3. Musculoskeletal Disorders
4. Stress
5. Workplace Transport
For further advice please contact us.
Fit 3 Campaign
Fit 3 - Fit for work, Fit for life, Fit for tomorrow
We are joining forces with the Health and Safety Executive to launch Fit 3, a new campaign to reduce injury and ill health at work.
The 'Fit for work, fit for life, fit for tomorrow' campaign will see officers working with local businesses to improve safety and reduce ill health and absence among staff.
In the coming months, the Fit 3 campaign will focus on work at height, slips and trips, manual handling, moving goods safely, work place transport and disease reduction. The disease reduction programme will target dermatitis in hairdressing, floristry and the Catering sector.
For further information contact us or all information regarding the above topics can be found on the HSE website.
Workplace accident reporting
The law requires certain work-related injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences to be reported to the enforcing authority for health and safety (this may be us or the Health and Safety Executive).
What needs to be reported?
· Death or major injuries to an employee or a self-employed person working on your premises
· Death or hospitalisation of a member of the public
Must be reported without delay (usually by telephone) and followed up with a completed F2508 form within 10 days.
· Over three day injury to an employee or a self-employed person working on your premises
· Disease suffered by an employee that is related to work activities
· Dangerous occurrence that does not result in a reportable injury but which clearly could have done
Must be reported with a completed F2508/F2508A form within 10 days.
This can be done by contacting the Incident Contact Centre directly or you can download a copy of the notification form from here. When completed, it must be returned to the Enforcing Authority for your business.
You can report to the Incident Contact Centre via:-
· By phone - 0845 300 9923 (8.30am – 5.00pm)
· By fax - 0845 300 9924 (anytime)
· By Internet - www.riddor.gov.uk (anytime)
· By email - riddor@natbrit.com
· By post - Incident Contact Centre, Caerphilly Business Park, Caerphilly, F83 3GG
For more help about accident reporting visit the Reporting of Accidents, Diseases and Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) web site above, or call us for a guidance leaflet.