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Overview: These Regulations set out broad general duties which apply to almost all
work activities in Great Britain and offshore. They are aimed mainly at improving health
and safety management and can be seen as a way of making more explicit what is
required of employers under the Health and Safety at Work Act.
Employers
The Regulations require employers to:
Assess the risks to the health and safety of employees and to anyone else who
may be affected by their work activity. This is so that the necessary preventive
and protective measures can be identified. Employers with 5 or more employees
have to record the significant findings of the assessment.
Ensure that the principles of prevention are applied. In practice, start by
avoiding risk and then assess, reduce and control any remaining risk that cannot
be avoided.
Make arrangements for putting into practice the health and safety measures that
follow from the risk assessment. This will have to cover planning, organisation,
control, monitoring and review of the protective and preventative measures, in
other words. Again, employers with 5 or more employees will have to record
their arrangements.
Provide appropriate health surveillance for employees where the risk
assessment shows it to be necessary.
Appoint one or more competent people (by preference from within the
organisation rather than an outside consultant) to help him in undertaking the
measures he needs to take to comply with the requirements and prohibitions
imposed upon him by or under the relevant statutory provisions. Where more
than one competent person is appointed, the employer shall make arrangements
for ensuring adequate co-operation between them. The competent person(s)
must have time available to fulfill their functions and be provided with the
necessary information. They must also have adequate means available at their
disposal.
Identify danger areas and have procedures in place to deal with serious and
imminent danger. Appoint competent persons to take charge and implement
evacuation procedures.
Liaise with the external services when drawing up emergency procedures etc.
Provide employees with comprehensible information about specific health and
safety matters. For example: the results of risk assessments and the introduction
of control measures, the names of competence persons appointed to assist the
employer and the names of persons placed in charge of evacuation procedures
etc.
Co-operate with other employers sharing the work site.
Ensure comprehensible information and instruction is provided to other
employers, the self-employed and employees of other employers working in the
workplace.
Ensure that employees have adequate health and safety training and are capable
