All employees have the right to work in a healthy and safe environment and as an employer you must ensure that you have taken steps as far as is "reasonably practical" to ensure a suitable working environment.

HR Advantage’s Health and Safety services offer you exactly the Health and Safety support you need to operate safely and meet your legal obligations.

In order to comply with the Health and Safety legislation and to follow "best practice" principles all employers should have at least the following:

• A Health and Safety policy
• A signed Health and Safety policy statement
• A completed Health and Safety poster
• An appointed competent person to evaluate and manage risks and hazards
• Current completed risk assessments based on the above
• Detail of how measures identified will be implemented
• Evidence that Health and Safety issues have been communicated to all staff
• Signed documents as evidence that Health and Safety training has taken place for all employees
• Established procedures to be followed in the event of serious and imminent danger to persons working in the organisation

The Consequences

The penalty for breaching Health and Safety law can be a large fine and in some cases imprisonment. These of course will be detrimental not only to the financial stability of your business but also to its reputation and continuing viability.

How HR Advantage can help

For your continued peace of mind HR Advantage can provide a full consultancy service aimed at ensuring that your organisation is fully compliant with all health and safety legislation. This includes:

• Risk assessments for COSHH, PUWER, DSE, Noise, Manual Handling and Fire
• Safety Management system including a policy and associated template documents and procedures
• The Health & Safety Audit
• On-site Health & Safety Training Courses
• Health & Safety help line and on-site support
• Fire risk assessments, fire plans, ongoing monitoring and training.

We have also recently launched HRAExtra which offers a wealth of information on key aspects of running your business - from protecting your workforce when they are on the road to providing a business continuity framework to enable you to carry on working after a major disaster. It also includes a Health and Safety "Ask the Expert" e-mail service giving you unlimited access to our panel of expert H&S consultants enabling you to discuss any H&S issue with someone in the know.

You can use the HRAExtra website as an information resource and you can even use it more pro-actively by completeing Self Assessments and determining how you are doing and what more you need to do to protect your business. You can use the other areas of the website to understand how to tackle each of the problems on your To-Do list, and complete written assessments using the A-Z, Ask the Expert, Management areas and Download sections. You can keep records of all documentation produced and ensure that employees are provided with the significant findings of risk assessments. This could include information on the nature of hazards and the means of controlling or eliminating them.

If you have any questions about HRAExtra please call Christine on 01494 478801 or e-mail her at christine@hradvantage.co.uk