Covid-19 Health and Safety

Introduction

At DOHR we are not Health and Safety experts. We do however have a sound working knowledge and are able to signpost you towards practical help at this time.

As an employer, you are 100% responsible for the health and safety of your staff. There is a legal obligation on you and you have a ‘Duty of Care’ towards all your employees and workers. In many companies, there is a nominated health and safety person and ideally they should be trained up to be a ‘competent person’ as defined by the Health and Safety Executive.

From the time you have even one employee, there is a legal obligation on you to have a health and safety (H&S) policy and procedures in place. However, once you have more than five employees, this policy MUST be documented.

Most companies will include health and safety obligations in employee contracts and the employee handbook (if you have one). In many cases, each employee will be responsible for their own health and safety and that of their fellow workers. They will also be obliged to report any concerns which they are not personally able to resolve.

All working environments should have a risk assessment in place and this should be a ‘living and breathing’ document which is updated on a regular basis. There should be an action plan, reviews and reassessments at set intervals or when there are specific actions i.e. a new office layout.

All home workers and lone workers should also have regular risk assessments carried out with any identified risks mitigated as required.

Most Health and Safety legislation is under the auspices of Health and Safety Executive (https://www.hse.gov.uk/) and the Government’s Return to work safely campaign is being run in conjunction with the HSE.