ELEMENT 2

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The purpose and importance of a health and safety policy

The role of the health and safety policy in decision making:
The health and safety policy of an organization is an important document that sets
out the organizations aims with regards to health and safety, who is responsible for
achieving these aims and how the aims are to be achieved.

What are the aims of Health and safety policy?

1. Legal compliance 2. Meeting the requirement of management system
standards
3. Clear communication
4. Continuous improvement

What are the three key elements of health and safety

policy?
A policy is presenting in three sections:
1. General statement of intent

2. Organization

3. Arrangements

General Statement of intent:

This states the organization philosophy in relation to management of health and
safety.

Organization:
This section indicates the chain of commands for health and safety management
identifies roles

Arrangements:
This section outlines the arrangements that exist for effective management of
health & safety
Note: there is no one correct format or set of content for health and safety policy.

Key features and content of a health and safety policy:

1. General statement of intent

2. Organization

3. Arrangement

General statement of intent

The statement of intent will usually recognize that manager and workers at all levels
within the organization have a part to play in implementing policy and also state
that every person must comply with the policy and that negligence of policy may be
treated as disciplinary offence.
The general statement of intend should signed by the person in charge of overall
organization like CEO, MD. The statement should also be dated. This indicates when
current statement was prepared.

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Objectives:

Meeting legal obligations

Provision of a safe workplace, safe equipment and safe system of work,
Information, training and supervision
Risk assessment of all relevant workplace activities
Performance monitoring
Provision of adequate resources such as expert health and safety advise
Effective communication and consultation with workers.

Targets:
The statement of intent may also set target for the organization to achieve. Possible
targets might be related to:
Accident rates
Active monitoring

Organization:
It outlines the chain of command for health and safety management and identifies
the roles and responsibilities of staff. It is standard practice for this section to
include an organization chart showing the lines of responsibility and accountability.
This chart also show the lines of communication and the feedback routes that exist
within the organization

This section reflects the management hierarchy of organization and

allocates responsibilities
CEO or Managing Director
Is responsible and accountable for the entire organization

Management at All Level

Is responsible for ensuring all safety measure are in place and being carried out
effectively.

All employees
Are responsible for acting safely at site

Competent Persons
Who have operational duties but are also considered competent to carryout one ore
more health and safety duties like first aiders and fire marshals etc.

Specialist health and safety practitioners:

Responsible for providing advice to support management and employees to
achieving safety

General health and safety management Arrangements:

The section deal with general arrangements in policy that exist to manage health
and safety

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General health and safety management arrangements:
1. Carrying out risk assessments
2. Identifying and supplying health and safety information instructions and
training.
3. Compliance monitoring including auditing
4. Accident and near miss reporting, recording and investigation
5. Consultation with workers on safety matters
6. Developing safe system of work and permit to work system
7. Emergency procedures and first aid provision.

Reviewing Policy:
Circumstances which might require a review of policy:
Policy should be review regularly so it remains current and relevant. However there
are some circumstances which could give rise to reviews:
1. Changes to key personnel e.g. new CEO or MD.
2. Changes to the management structure of the organization
3. A management take over
4. Changes to the type of work that the organization does.
5. Recommended by safety audit.
6. Requested by a third party such as insurance company or client

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