New to Health and Safety? 4 Things You Absolutely Have to Know

Brand new to health and safety and facing the slightly daunting prospect of dealing with it all?

Or just feeling out of the loop with what’s what?

No worries – I’m here to demystify the basics for you.

While health and safety can seem like a right palaver when you don’t know what to do, these essential must-knows will give you a great starting point!

1. Get others involved

First off – no matter how brainy and talented you are, health and safety is not something you want to tackle all on your own.

You’ll need to bring in someone who is ‘competent’  – that means more than just being able to do the job – they should have all the skills, knowledge and experience needed in their field, to understand how to do things safely.

You might need to bring in outside help for this – especially if you’re dealing with high risk activities. But if your business is relatively low risk, you – or another worker – could be the competent person.

Got it? Moving on!

Set the ground rules

Having an Elf and Safety whizz kid is just the start of your journey. The next thing you need to do is to spread the word.

And that means getting down to doing some homework. More specifically – you need to write up a Health and Safety Policy, for your specific business.

It’s really not as tough as it sounds, though! The most important things you need to cover are who is responsible for what safety issues, when to do things, and how to do them safely.

Do a Workplace risk assessment

Ok, this one is mega important – and something you’re going to find yourself doing lots and lots of times – so you might as well get to grips with it now!

Doing a risk assessment means you need to identify the most likely risks you face in your business, as well as what you are going to do about them.

You need to think carefully about what kinds of reasonable steps you’ll take, to prevent harm to employees or the public.

Remember that doing a workplace risk assessment isn’t about writing up a whole load of pointless documentation! You want to create a realistic and helpful assessment, that will help you work towards a healthier and safer workplace.

Get some training!

While you can definitely get the basics of health and safety yourself, when you start dealing with bigger risks or complicated issues, it’s a good idea to get some professional training.

So pull out the big guns and get yourselves off to a handy training course, pronto! Here, you’ll learn all sorts of useful stuff – from learning how to identify hazards, to what to do with them, as well as helping you come up with emergency protocols. 

Your takeaway points

Thinks health and safety is too complicated to deal with? Think again! Here are your 4 essential takeaways to get starting on the journey:

–       You don’t want to try to manage this yourself – get other colleagues or workers involved

–       Establish clear health and safety rules, that everyone must follow

–       Carry out a risk assessment – to identify risks, and figure out how you’ll tackle them

–       Get proper training – in everything from identifying risks to managing possibly harmful situations.

Got your head around health and safety? These are just some beginners’ tips to get you started, so check out our blog for more!

About David Cant

David Cant is a Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner extraordinaire. He has a wealth of Industry experience and is the MD of Veritas Consulting. David also Blogs about Health and Safety here Health and Safety Consultants

His aim is to flavour Health and Safety with integrity, served with a side of humour You can find David on - Twitter and Google also Linkedin