Quick fix audit
Has the topic of health and safety slipped down the priority list? Are your staff starting to fall back into bad habits? Or do you just want to check everything is OK? If so, why not use our quick fix audit document?
Yesterday’s subject
Have your staff started to ignore rules and procedures? Are they having more accidents and near-misses? They may even have lost faith in your commitment to ensure their health and safety. If so, you need to reverse the trend and get things back on track. To help you do this, we’ve created a quick fix audit.
Our document is divided into four sections. Each one guides you through a section of health and safety management, including documentation, staff consultation and site inspections.
Section one - policy documents
The first part focuses on your health and safety policy documents. Often these are prepared and then forgotten about. When someone finally decides to check them - often with an inspector stood behind them - they find out that they bear little or no resemblance to what’s actually happening.
Tip. As a minimum, ensure that any staff named still hold the positions that they did when the documents were created. Also, make sure that a director has signed a copy of your health and safety policy statement within the last twelve months.
Section two - site inspection
When did anyone last do a site inspection? Unless you have planned regular checks, you might be surprised at how long it is since your last one - if you’ve ever completed one that is.
Tip. Follow our guide to carrying out an inspection, including what to look for and how to record and allocate actions.
Section three - risk assessments
Many assume that you can do a risk assessment once and it will never need updating or re-writing. This isn’t the case. This section of our document guides you through a number of points to help ensure your risk assessments are up to scratch.
Section four - consultation
Businesses failing to give their staff the opportunity to raise health and safety issues is often picked up and punished by inspectors. If you can put a tick in the “yes” boxes, then you should have no problems from either an inspector or your staff.
Do it to suit you
You don’t have to tackle all four sections at once. Each one is independent of the others, and there’s no definitive order you should follow.
Tip 1. Don’t be tempted to change things just for the sake of it. If your current arrangements are OK, then simply state this and move on.
Tip 2. Keep a formal record of all actions, even if you’ve only checked something and agreed that what is in place is fine.
Tip 3. You can increase awareness of health and safety issues simply by informing your staff that you’re completing an audit of your arrangements. Doing this will be particularly useful if you’re having compliance issues.
The next step
For our free sample quick fix audit document, visit http://healthandsafety.indicator.co.uk (HS 06.03.05).
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