Know what the law asks.

Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to employees and to anyone else affected by the work. If you employ five or more people you must record the significant findings and any group of people identified as being especially at risk. There is no legal template, no minimum length and no requirement to use a five by five matrix. What the law asks for is that you identify the real hazards, decide who could be hurt and how, and put controls in place that are reasonably practicable.

Under RIDDOR 2013 you must report a work related death, a specified injury, an injury that stops a worker doing their normal work for more than seven consecutive days, certain diagnosed occupational diseases, and a listed dangerous occurrence. You must also report an injury to a member of the public that results in them being taken directly to hospital for treatment. Deaths and specified injuries go to the HSE without delay and in writing within ten days. Over seven day injuries have fifteen days.

The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 require you to provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and people, based on your own assessment of need. There is no legal minimum ratio of first aiders to staff. A low hazard workplace with fewer than twenty five people can usually manage with an appointed person, twenty five to fifty needs at least one EFAW trained first aider, and above fifty you should plan on one FAW trained first aider per hundred people, adjusted for shifts, travel and the actual hazards.

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 the responsible person for any non domestic premises must carry out a fire risk assessment and keep it up to date. Since the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, that assessment must be recorded in full for all premises, and in multi occupied residential buildings it must cover the structure, external walls and flat entrance doors. Enforcement sits with the local fire and rescue authority, and penalties for serious breaches are unlimited fines and imprisonment.

Any business with ten or more employees must keep an accident book under the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979, and every employer must record RIDDOR reportable events and any injury causing more than three consecutive days of incapacity. Entries must contain the injured person's details, the date, time and place, what happened and what injury resulted. Keep accident records for at least three years from the date of the last entry, longer where a claim or a health exposure is involved, and store them so that other employees cannot read personal details.

A toolbox talk is a short, focused safety briefing delivered at the workplace, normally five to fifteen minutes on a single topic that is relevant to the work happening that week. No regulation names them, but they are the practical way employers meet the duty in section 2(2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to provide information, instruction, training and supervision. Record the date, topic, presenter and attendees, and keep the record with the site file.

The Personal Protective Equipment at Work (Amendment) Regulations 2022 came into force on 6 April 2022 and extended the 1992 PPE duties from employees only to limb (b) workers, which covers casual, zero hours and many gig and short contract workers. If PPE is needed, you must assess it, provide it, maintain it and replace it free of charge. Section 9 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 makes charging for anything provided to meet a health and safety duty unlawful, including through wage deductions or deposits.

There is no specific lone working law in the UK. Lone working is covered by the general duties in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and by regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which requires the risks of lone work to be assessed like any other. Lone working is lawful for most tasks, but some work must never be done alone, including most confined space entry, live electrical work, and work where one person could not summon help or carry out an emergency procedure.

There is no legal maximum lifting weight in the UK. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 require you to avoid hazardous manual handling so far as is reasonably practicable, assess what cannot be avoided, and reduce the risk of injury to the lowest level reasonably practicable. The HSE guideline filter figures are 25kg for a man lifting at knuckle height close to the body and 16kg for a woman, dropping sharply when the load is higher, lower or further from the body, and they are a screening tool rather than a legal limit.

If you employ five or more people you must have a written health and safety policy under section 2(3) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. It has three parts: a statement of general policy, the organisation section saying who is responsible for what, and the arrangements section saying how each risk is managed in practice. It must be signed and dated by the most senior person in the business and brought to the attention of employees.

Under regulation 12 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 a construction phase plan is required for every construction project, however small. The principal contractor prepares it where there is more than one contractor, and the sole contractor prepares it where there is only one. It must be drawn up before the construction phase begins, set out the health and safety arrangements and site rules for that specific project, and be kept up to date as the work changes.

CDM 2015 creates six duty holder roles: client, principal designer, designer, principal contractor, contractor and worker. Any project with more than one contractor requires the client to appoint a principal designer and a principal contractor in writing. The client carries the overarching duty to make suitable arrangements for managing the project, and those arrangements must be maintained and reviewed throughout.

Under regulation 12 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 a scaffold from which a person could fall two metres or more must be inspected by a competent person before first use, at intervals not exceeding seven days, and after any event likely to have affected its stability, such as high winds, impact or alteration. The inspection must be recorded before the end of the working period and the report kept on site until the work is complete, then at the office for three months.

Yes. Regulation 4 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 requires work at height to be properly planned, and planning includes planning for emergencies and rescue. Where fall arrest equipment is used, a rescue plan is effectively mandatory because a suspended casualty can deteriorate within minutes from suspension trauma. Relying on the fire and rescue service is not an adequate plan, because a typical response time exceeds the safe suspension window.

Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 places a duty to manage asbestos on whoever is responsible for maintenance of non domestic premises. Before any refurbishment or demolition work that will disturb the fabric of a building built or refurbished before 2000, a refurbishment and demolition survey is required, and it must cover the areas to be worked on. A management survey is not sufficient for that purpose because it is non intrusive and presumes rather than proves.

Power take off shafts must be fully guarded along their whole length, with the tractor master shield and the implement input connection guard both in place, under regulation 11 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. Farm transport and machinery remain the largest causes of death in UK agriculture, so the practical duties are guarding, safe stop before any adjustment, separating vehicles from people, and only allowing trained, authorised operators to use machines.

Livestock handling is controlled by the general duties in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and by risk assessment under the Management Regulations 1999. The practical controls are a well designed handling system with a crush and escape routes, competent and unhurried handling, culling animals with a history of aggression, keeping the public away from cattle with calves, and managing zoonotic disease risk through hygiene and PPE.

A school trip risk assessment is an ordinary risk assessment under regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, applied to pupils as people affected by the work. It should cover the journey, the venue, the activities, supervision ratios, medical and additional needs, weather, and the emergency plan including a named home contact. Adventurous activities provided commercially require the provider to hold an AALA licence where the activity falls within the licensable categories.

Gym equipment is work equipment under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, so it must be suitable, maintained in efficient working order and inspected where safety depends on the installation or on deterioration. There is no legally fixed interval. A defensible regime is a daily visual check, a documented weekly or monthly functional inspection, and a manufacturer specified service, typically quarterly or annually, by a competent engineer, all recorded.

A pool safety operating procedure, usually called a PSOP, is the written system for operating a swimming pool safely. It has two parts: the normal operating plan, which covers the pool details, hazards, staffing, supervision and daily operation, and the emergency action plan, which covers what to do for each foreseeable emergency. It is expected under HSE guidance HSG179 and is how a pool operator demonstrates compliance with the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.