Managing Health and Safety in Health and Social Care

The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, emphasises the need for employers to manage safety, health and welfare at work in order to prevent workplace injuries and ill health. Managing health and safety at work involves an initial review of the arrangements in place to secure the safety, health and welfare of his/her employees. It includes developing a health and safety policy which confirms the employer’s and management’s commitment to ensuring a healthy and safe place to work. It involves identifying standards to be achieved, how this will be done and monitoring and reviewing performance.

The basis for the management of health and safety is the written Safety Statement. The Safety Statement must be based on the identification of hazards and the assessment of risk as described below.

Safety Statement

Section 20 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 requires that employers prepare a written programme to safeguard the safety and health of employees and other people who might be at the workplace. This written programme is known as the Safety Statement.

 The Safety Statement must specify how the safety, health and welfare of employees will be secured and managed. The Safety Statement must include:

• the health and safety policy confirming the commitment of the employer and management to securing a safe and healthy place of work;
• the duties of the employer and employees with regard to health and safety;
• the responsibilities of key personnel (this must include names and the applicable job title/position with regard to safety, health and welfare, such as the responsibilities of the senior manager/director of nursing and so on; it is important to ensure that there are clear lines of responsibility and good awareness of responsibilities allocated);
• the arrangements for employee consultation and for communicating health and safety information (this should include the name(s) of the safety representative(s) and members of the safety committee, where appointed);
• emergency plans, such as evacuation procedures and arrangements for contacting emergency services;
• a written risk assessment(s), which is a key part of the Safety Statement in which work-related hazards are identified and the associated risks assessed (the control measures to eliminate or reduce the risk must also be identified and documented); and
• any other arrangements for securing safety, health and welfare at work and the resources provided in order to do so, such as arrangements for occupational health expertise, immunisation arrangements for employees, health surveillance, and arrangements for working with contractors and/or others who share the building.

The Safety Statement should be signed by the responsible person (for example, the employer or senior manager) and dated. The Safety Statement must be kept up to date. It should be reviewed at least annually (but more often if required), and any time there are changes at the workplace that might affect employee health and safety. The Safety Statement must be brought to the attention of all employees at the commencement of their employment and at least annually or following any amendments. The Safety Statement must also be brought to the attention of others at the workplace (such as contractors) who may be exposed to specific risks to which the Safety Statement applies.

A copy of the Safety Statement, or a relevant extract from it, must be available for inspection by a HSA inspector at or near the place of work to which it relates.

Risk Assessment

Section 19 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 requires employers and those in control of a place of work to identify hazards and assess their risk. The employer or responsible person must identify hazards in the workplace(s) under their control and assess the risks presented by those hazards. Employers must record the risks and outline controls to reduce or remove the risk of the hazard identified. This is known as a risk assessment.

Some risk assessments may be simple and arise directly from observation such as obstructions in the corridor creating a tripping hazard, some hazards may be more complex for example the risks associated with certain people moving and handling activities

A risk assessment is a written document that records the following three-step process:

1. Identify the hazard(s)
2. Assess the risk
3. Put control measure(s) in place

Once the three step process to carrying out a risk assessment is complete, it is important to:

• Record the findings of your risk assessment(s) and talk to your employees
• Review, monitor and update risk assessment(s)

Reviewing and measuring performance

Once a control measure has been implemented, its effectiveness should be monitored. Health and safety performance should be monitored and evaluated in order to ensure compliance with legal requirements. The procedures for monitoring health and safety performance need to be set out in the Safety Statement.

Monitoring health and safety performance may be:

• Active: This is done before things go wrong and is focused on the prevention of accidents or incidents through regular inspection and checking (for example, audits, inspection feedback or employee surveys).
• Reactive: This is done after things go wrong and is centred around learning from mistakes (for example, accident or incident investigations), and primarily involves the use of accident records in order to implement changes to prevent similar accidents or incidents from reoccurring.

 Measuring performance may involve key performance indicators, such as the following:

• Examining trends in accidents and incidents: for example, what are the most common causes reported, and are the numbers increasing or decreasing?
• Reviewing compliance with training requirements: for example, what percentage of employees requiring manual handling training have up-to-date training?
• Making progress with the implementation of additional control measures identified through the risk assessment process: for example, how many control measures have been identified, and how many have been implemented in the time frame identified?

Corrective action should be taken when necessary in order to continuously improve health and safety performance and to ensure that the system for managing health and safety is effective.