Member Article

Health and Safety at Work

With Watson Burton LLP Law Firm

There is a duty on employers to ensure the health and safety of their employees. This involves ensuring employees are protected from anything that may cause harm and controlling risks to injury or health that could arise in the workplace. If an employer has failed to take steps to meet this duty they will be guilty of an offence, unless the employer can show that it was not reasonably practicable to take the steps they failed to take.

What the duty involves depends on the type of work employers are required to do. Employers in the construction and building industry are familiar with their duties to protect the health and safety of their employees, but the duty to protect employees extends far wider than this, affecting employers in all industries. Last month the Health and Safety Executive announced its intention to prosecute the Sunderland based charity Mental Health Matters, for an alleged breach of health and safety law. This follows an investigation into the death of a care worker in Newcastle upon Tyne last year. Ashleigh Ewing, a 22 year old employee of Mental Health Matters who was working as a support assistant at the time of her death, was stabbed to death on a visit to the home of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Mental Health Matters now faces a charge alleging it breached the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 forms the basis of British health and safety law, requiring employers to look at the risks to employees and take sensible measures to tackle them. The Health and Safety Executive provides useful guidance as to what employers must do to comply with health and safety legislation. The following are some of the reasonable steps that employers must take to protect the health, safety and welfare of its employees:

• An employer must decide what could harm an employee in their job and the precautions to stop it.
• An employer must explain, in a way that employees understand, how risks will be controlled and who is responsible for this.
• An employer must provide health and safety training that employees need to do their jobs.
• An employer must provide employees with any equipment and protective clothing they need, and ensure it is properly looked after.
• An employer must have insurance that covers employees in case they get hurt at work or ill through work. A copy of the current insurance certificate must be displayed where employees can easily read it.
• Employers must work with other employers or contractors sharing the workplace so that everyone’s health and safety is protected.

Although employers hold overall responsibility for the health and safety of employees, employees are also under a duty to help. Employees must follow any training which has been received, co-operate with their employee and take reasonable care of their own and other people’s health and safety. However, employers who fail to ensure the health, safety and welfare of employees could face up to two years imprisonment and a hefty fine, and in some cases, company directors may also be found personally culpable.

If you have any comments or questions about this article or any regulatory matters, please contact Alison Scrafton of Watson Burton LLP at Alison.scrafton@watsonburton.com.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .