Where can I find help writing a health and safety policy, we are a small company with approximately 15 employees. I have a leaflet for our local government called “Advice to employers”, but is there somewhere we can get a templated version and tweak to suit our company?
thanks you
Antoinette Wilcox
2 Responses
"Competent Person"
Must agree with comments regarding off-the-shelf packages. The implications of getting it wrong are too expensive to try and skimp on this.
It may seem expensive but you may want to bring someone in to work interactively with you. Do not suggest simply handing this over to a consultant as you need to have ownership.
How expensive is the health and safety of 15 people?
It is difficult to overstate the risk you take by using a template to create your health and safety policy, Antoinette.
If you want to take the risk, you can get a computerised template (two are on offer for £28 and £29) in PC World.
The risk of going down this path is that you risk spending 100+ times the necessary time in managing health and safety badly and end up with claims for personal injury liability.
The essence of H & S management is simple:
a. identifying all the hazards your people face
b. linking them to how managers can relate them to performance and quality management
c. setting in train the processes needed to control them
d. ensuring effective auditing and communications support what you do.
As an ergonomist, chartered psychologist and personal injury liability expert witness, I can’t encourage you enough to face up to the risks of choosing not to invest in competent management of your employees health and safety and of related high performance. The relevant sections on http://www.enablingspace.co.uk may
help you to get started