Becoming an employer in the UK offers numerous benefits, but it also comes with significant responsibilities. Among these, ensuring the health and safety of your employees is paramount. The UK governing bodies emphasize the enforcement of safety regulations across all business sectors and workplaces. Employers are, therefore, required to maintain comprehensive health records, including safety-critical medical assessments, to demonstrate that their employees are fit for their roles. Here are some key regulations that employers must abide by:
- The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
- Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
- Personal Protective Equipment Regulations (PPE) 2018
- Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (amended 2002)
- Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR)
Per these legislations, employers must be super critical about the safety of their employees. Feeling worried? How will you be able to manage it? Don’t worry. Here, we have presented a perfect guide to safety-critical medicals for all UK employers that may help you easily navigate safety regulations for your employees and become a law-abiding citizen of your state.
Recognize What Regulations Apply to Your Sector
Check sites like HSE and britsafe.org to learn and understand what regulations apply to your workplace. These regulations mainly differ depending on the nature and size of your workplace. This will help you recognize what specific safety-critical medical regulations apply to your business.
Setting SOPs and Communicating Health and Safety Policies
Once you recognize what applies to your sector, the next step is to communicate it to your employees. For that, you have to create an outline that depicts your organization’s aims of providing a safe environment. Next, you must establish SOPs, or Standard Operating Procedures, which are detailed sets of steps and methods required for the completion of tasks with safety, quality, efficiency, and consistency.
Providing Risks Awareness
Your employees must have awareness of all protocols as it helps in the overall reduction of risks in the workplace. Every sector carries with itself its risks. However, to play your part in minimalizing those risks keep a check and identify the hazards of your workplace for any particular task of your workplace and conduct risk assessments like fire risk assessment or manual handling risk assessments. After identifying the severity of any process or activity, you may easily work on control measures for that and play your part in mitigating the risk from your workplace.
Employee Training
The best you can do for your workplace is to conduct safety training for your employees from time to time. This has many benefits. It boosts the productivity of your employees as with activities, employees become active and realize that the company is working for their safety. After recognizing the hazards present in your workplace, design specific training sessions for them. The following are some of the examples of what kind of training you may provide:
- General Health and Safety Awareness
- Fire Safety Training
- Stress Management Training
- Safety Training for prevention against slips, trips and falls
- PPE use Training
- Manual Handling Training
- Ergonomics Training
- Training for working at heights
- First Aid Training
Organizing Safety-Health Checkups for Record-Tracking
A smart employer will keep track of all the training, risk assessments, and incident reports. What else is the duty of the employer to organize health checkups for their employees? This helps them learn if the employee is fit for the task, you have given them. However, after the checkups, for instance, if your employee proves to be unfit for the task, you can adjust and find him another task for him. That will help you remain a law-abiding as well as a well-wisher of your employees.
Final Words
Finally, it is also up to you to design a safe workspace and maintain all the equipment. Effectively navigating safety regulations demands a systematic approach. By persistently following the aforementioned points, your sector could become a safer working environment that follows safety-critical medicals.
