Health and safety is the act of preventing injury, harm or ill health from anybody including employees, workplace visitors, freelancers, contractors, or any other individuals.
People should be able to go to work, knowing that they are safe in the workplace. This means that everybody should have a duty of care to protect those around them. Legally and morally, companies should prioritise health and safety, making sure no harm comes to those while in the workplace.
Some individuals or companies do not place enough of a priority on health and safety, sometimes because they believe it is too time consuming or expensive to maintain. This can be a costly mistake as it can result in ill health, injury or even death as a result of incidents and accidents.
When this is not managed effectively and health and safety is not accounted for, it can be incredibly costly for businesses. In fact, it can be a lot more expensive than it would have been to manage it properly in the first place.
Here are just some of the reasons that health and safety should be properly managed:
- Lower likelihood of ill health
- Less likely to experience injuries
- Reduced cost of insurance
- More loyal staff
- It makes individuals feel valued
- Higher productivity and better morale
- More desirable image
If health and safety is not managed, the following situations may occur:
- Injuries to staff
- Periods of sickness or inability to work
- Accidents, incidents and near misses
- Damage to equipment
- Expensive insurance or refused policies
- Lawsuits
- Prosecution
- Bad reputation
- High staff turnover
- Poor work ethic
- Staff feeling undervalued
- Lack of productivity
- Low morale in the workplace
This course will explain the meaning of health and safety, as well as the reasoning behind implementing health and safety regulations. It will also explore the history of health and safety legislations, including the Health and Safety at Work Act, the ‘Six Pack’ regulations, Health and Safety Executives, Approved Codes of Practice, PUWER, PPE Regulations, COSHH, SDS, fire hazards, working with noise, manual handling and more.
By taking this course you will be making sure that your workplace is adhering to health and safety legislation and making sure that you understand how to create a safe working environment for those around you.
Health and safety management is a type of investment, working to keep everybody within the workplace safe and well, as well as bringing numerous benefits for the business and country.
Course Duration: approximately 10 hours.