What is Health and Safety?

No matter what your job is or what industry you work in, you will no doubt come across health and safety.

What is health and safety, and why should it be at the forefront of everything you do?

What is health and safety?

When considering the two words separately health and safety means:

• Health – a state of well-being. This includes both physiological and psychological.
• Safety – measures we implement to protect individuals from injury, harm or damage.

Together, health and safety is about ensuring that people are not injured or made ill by their work.

There are three main reasons for managing health and safety in the workplace:

• Moral – no-one wants to see anyone get injured or ill.
• Financial – people and organisations can be prosecuted or sued for breaking the law.
• Legal – it’s the law! There are legal requirements placed on both employers and employees to protect themselves and those around them.

In the UK there is one major piece of legislation covering health and safety, which is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. It places duties on employers to protect the health, safety and welfare at work of all their employees, as well as others within the workplace including clients, visitors and the general public.

There is also The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which go into specific detail about assessing risks, and putting arrangements in place to control or reduce the risks. 

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. Their website contains lots of relevant guidance and resources which should answer any questions you might have related to health and safety. Take a look at their website here.

There are often negative connotations surrounding health and safety and the associated responsibilities and workload. However, if you take the right precautions to reduce the risks and provide a safe working environment, health and safety should feel like a part of everyday life, not a burden.

Many day-to-day health and safety tasks can be undertaken by yourself or others within the organisation who have had sufficient training, or are competent to do so.

However, some things need professional advice and expertise; this is where we can help you.

Our range of health and safety consultancy and training services ensure that you can work safe in the knowledge that your health and safety precautions are robust and that you are compliant with all of your legal duties. Contact us today on 01394 389683 or info@safetyboss.co.uk to find out how we can help you.