Managing for health and safety

Managing for health and safety

Health and Safety This is a free-to-download, web-friendly version of HSG65 (Third edition, published 2013). You can order a printed version at www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/ Executive

Managing for health and safety hsg65.htm or visit the website at www.hse.gov.uk/managing.

This revised edition of one of HSE’s most popular guides is mainly for leaders, owners, trustees and line managers. It will particularly help those who need to put in place or oversee their organisation’s health and safety arrangements. The advice may also help workers and their representatives, as well as health and safety practitioners and training providers.

The guidance explains the Plan, Do, Check, Act approach and shows how it can help you achieve a balance between the systems and behavioural aspects of management. It also treats health and safety management as an integral part of good management generally, rather than as a stand-alone system.

The revised edition has advice on:

■ the core elements of managing for health and safety; ■ deciding if you are doing what you need to do; ■ delivering effective arrangements; ■ useful resources.

© Crown copyright 2013

First published 1991 Second edition 1997 Third edition 2013

ISBN 978 0 7176 6456 6

You may reuse this information (excluding logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view the licence visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/, write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk.

Some images and illustrations may not be owned by the Crown so cannot be reproduced without permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be sent to copyright@hse.gsi.gov.uk.

This guidance is issued by the Health and Safety Executive. Following the guidance is not compulsory, unless specifically stated, and you are free to take other action. But if you do follow the guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law. Health and safety inspectors seek to secure compliance with the law and may refer to this guidance.

Contents

Introduction 6

How this book can help you 6 How to use the book 6 The Plan, Do, Check, Act approach 7

Part 1: Core elements of managing for health and safety 10 Legal duties 11 Risk profiling 11 Health and safety management systems 12 Documentation 12 Attitudes and behaviours 12

Part 2: Are you doing what you need to do? 13

Risk profiling 13 Leading and managing for health and safety 14 What are you doing? 14 Additional factors to consider 16 Competence 17 What are you doing? 17 Additional factors to consider 18 Worker consultation and involvement 19 What are you doing? 19 Additional factors to consider 20

Part 3: Delivering effective arrangements 21

Plan 22 Determining your policy 22 What should your policy cover? 22 Who is best placed to write it? 23 Consulting and acting on your policy 23 Planning for implementation 23 Why planning is essential 23 Effective planning 23 Key actions in effective policy development and planning 24

Do 25 Profiling your organisation’s health and safety risks 26 Assessing the risks 26 What types of risks need to be considered? 26 Who should do the assessment? 26 Who could be affected? 27 What the law says on assessing risks 27 Assessing the level of risk 27 Small businesses 27 Medium-sized businesses or those with greater risks 28 Large and high-hazard sites 28 Risk controls 28 Recording your findings 28 Health surveillance 29 Key actions in effective risk profiling 29 Organising for health and safety 31 Controls within the organisation: the role of supervisors 31 Key actions in supervising for health and safety effectively 32 Managing contractors 32 Key actions in managing contractors effectively 33 Co-operation 34 What is worker involvement? 34 Co-ordination with contractors 35 Ways of involving workers 35 Contacts with external services 35 Emergency procedures 35 Emergency planning and co-operation with the emergency services 36 Danger areas 36 Key actions in co-operating effectively 37 Communication 38 How size and structure affect communication 38 Key actions in communicating effectively 39 Competence 39 Who should be the competent person? 39 Key actions in competence 40

Capabilities and training 40 What capabilities do employees need to have? 40 Where training is particularly important 41 Training is not a substitute for risk control 41 Key actions in capability and effective health and safety training 41 Specialist help 43 When you may need specialist help 43 What the law says on specialist help 43 Additional checks for employing an occupational physician 43 Key actions in managing specialist help effectively 45 Implementing your plan 46 The key steps 46 Documentation 46 Implementing risk control plans 46 Key actions in implementing your plan effectively 47

Check 48 Measuring performance 48 Monitoring 48 How to monitor 49 Types of monitoring 49 Selecting the right measures 49 Key actions in measuring performance effectively 50 Investigating accidents and incidents 51 Why investigate? 51 Reporting incidents 52 Key actions in effective accident/ incident investigation 53

Act 54 Reviewing performance 54 Key actions in reviewing performance effectively 55 Worker consultation and involvement 56 Competence 56 Learning lessons 56 Common factors when things go wrong 56 Organisational learning 57 Human factors 57 Key actions in learning lessons effectively 57

Part 4: Resources 58

Further information 62

Introduction

This book is mainly for leaders, owners, trustees and line managers. It will particularly help those who need to put in place or oversee their organisation’s health and safety arrangements.

The advice may also help workers and their representatives, as well as health and safety practitioners and training providers.

How this book can help you

Organisations have a legal duty to put in place suitable arrangements to manage for health and safety. This book provides a framework to help you do that effectively, in a way that your organisation can tailor to your own circumstances.

In implementing your arrangements, you should consult with your employees or their representatives, including trade unions where they are recognised.

The framework described in this book is universal but how far action is needed will depend on the size and nature of the organisation, and the risks from its activities, products or services.

The guidance is also available on HSE’s ‘Managing for health and safety’ website at www.hse.gov.uk/managing and you can order a printed copy or download a PDF version at www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/hsg65.htm.

If you need information on how to minimise particular risks in your organisation then ‘The health and safety toolbox: How to control risks at work’ will be helpful (www.hse.gov.uk/toolbox).

If you just need basic information or are getting started in managing for health and safety in your organisation, then the best place to look is ‘Health and safety made simple: The basics for your business’ (www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety).

If you are a microbusiness, you can get information from the Federation of Small Businesses (www.fsb.org.uk).

How to use the book

This book will help you, as leaders, owners, trustees and line managers, put the right measures in place to manage the real risks to health and safety in your organisation.

Part 1 gives you the core elements of managing for health and safety and how they can fit with how you run the rest of your business.

Part 2 shows you what to look for when deciding if you’re doing what you need to do.

Part 3 gives advice on delivering effective arrangements. It will be particularly useful to those who need to put in place or oversee their organisation’s arrangements for health and safety, eg health and safety managers.

Part 4 signposts resources from HSE and other organisations. There are also short ‘Find out more’ lists with relevant sources of advice throughout the book.

The Plan, Do, Check, Act approach

HSE has moved away from using the POPMAR (Policy, Organising, Planning, Measuring performance, Auditing and Review) model of managing health and safety to a ‘Plan, Do, Check, Act’ approach.

The move towards Plan, Do, Check, Act achieves a balance between the systems and behavioural aspects of management. It also treats health and safety management as an integral part of good management generally, rather than as a stand-alone system.

The high-level descriptions may vary, depending on the industry or sector you are working in, but a summary of the actions involved in delivering effective arrangements and how they are frequently described is given in Table 1, under the headings of Plan, Do, Check, Act.

Table 1 The read-across between Plan, Do, Check, Act and other management systems

Plan, Do, Conventional health and safety Process safety Check, management Act

Define and communicate Plan Determine your policy/Plan for acceptable performance and implementation resources needed

Do Identify and assess risks/Identify Profile risks/Organise for health controls/Record and maintain and safety/Implement your plan process safety knowledge

Implement and manage control measures

Check Measure performance (monitor before events, investigate after Measure and review events) performance/Learn from measurements and findings of Act Review performance/Act on investigations lessons learned

Plan ■ Think about where you are now and where you need to be. ■ Say what you want to achieve, who will be responsible for what, how you will achieve your aims, and how you will measure your success. You may need to write down this policy and your plan to deliver it. ■ Decide how you will measure performance. Think about ways to do this that go beyond looking at accident figures; look for leading indicators as well as lagging indicators. These are also called active and reactive indicators (see ‘Types of monitoring’ on page 49). ■ Consider fire and other emergencies. Co-operate with anyone who shares your workplace and co-ordinate plans with them. ■ Remember to plan for changes and identify any specific legal requirements that apply to you.

Do

■ Identify your risk profile ■ Assess the risks, identify what could cause harm in the workplace, who it could harm and how, and what you will do to manage the risk. ■ Decide what the priorities are and identify the biggest risks. ■ Organise your activities to deliver your plan In particular, aim to: ■ Involve workers and communicate, so that everyone is clear on what is needed and can discuss issues – develop positive attitudes and behaviours. ■ Provide adequate resources, including competent advice where needed. ■ Implement your plan ■ Decide on the preventive and protective measures needed and put them in place. ■ Provide the right tools and equipment to do the job and keep them maintained. ■ Train and instruct, to ensure everyone is competent to carry out their work. ■ Supervise to make sure that arrangements are followed.

Check

■ Measure your performance ■ Make sure that your plan has been implemented – ‘paperwork’ on its own is not a good performance measure. ■ Assess how well the risks are being controlled and if you are achieving your aims. In some circumstances formal audits may be useful. ■ Investigate the causes of accidents, incidents or near misses

Act

■ Review your performance ■ Learn from accidents and incidents, ill-health data, errors and relevant experience, including from other organisations. ■ Revisit plans, policy documents and risk assessments to see if they need updating. ■ Take action on lessons learned, including from audit and inspection reports

Figure 1 The Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle

Plan, Do, Check, Act should not be seen as a once-and-for-all action:

Planning Risk profiling

Organising

Policy

PLAN DO Implementing your plan

Learning lessons ACT CHECK Measuring performance

Reviewing Investigating performance accidents/ incidents/ near misses

You may need to go round the cycle more than once, particularly when:

■ starting out; ■ developing a new process, product or service; or ■ implementing any change.

Part 1: Core elements of managing for health and safety

Organisations have a legal duty to put in place suitable arrangements to manage for health and safety. As this can be viewed as a wide-ranging, general requirement HSE encourages a common-sense and practical approach. It should be part of the everyday process of running an organisation and an integral part of workplace behaviours and attitudes.

Whatever your industry, or the size or nature of your organisation, the keys to effectively managing for health and safety are:

■ leadership and management (including appropriate business processes); ■ a trained/skilled workforce; ■ an environment where people are trusted and involved.

HSE advocates that all of these elements, underpinned by an understanding of the profile of risks the organisation creates or faces, are needed. This links back to wider risk management and can be pictured in the following diagram.

Figure 2 The core elements

Managing business risks

Managing for health and safety

Leadership Management

Worker involvement Competence

Risk Legal profiling compliance

Successful delivery can rarely be achieved by one-off interventions. A sustained and systematic approach is necessary. This may not require a formal health and safety management system but, whatever approach is used, it probably contains the steps Plan, Do, Check, Act. However, the success of whatever process or system is in place hinges on the attitudes and behaviours of people in the organisation.

Legal duties

All organisations have management processes or arrangements to deal with payroll, personnel issues, finance and quality control – managing health and safety is no different.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to put in place arrangements to control health and safety risks. As a minimum, you should have the processes and procedures required to meet the legal requirements, including:

■ a written health and safety policy (if you employ five or more people); ■ assessments of the risks to employees, contractors, customers, partners, and any other people who could be affected by your activities – and record the significant findings in writing (if you employ five or more people). Any risk assessment must be ‘suitable and sufficient’; ■ arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures that come from risk assessment; ■ access to competent health and safety advice, for example see the Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register (OSHCR) at www.hse.gov.uk/oshcr; ■ providing employees with information about the risks in your workplace and how they are protected; ■ instruction and training for employees in how to deal with the risks; ■ ensuring there is adequate and appropriate supervision in place; ■ consulting with employees about their risks at work and current preventive and protective measures.

Risk profiling

Effective leaders and line managers know the risks their organisations face, rank them in order of importance and take action to control them. The range of risks goes beyond health and safety risks to include quality, environmental and asset damage, but issues in one area could impact in another.

Although you may not use these precise terms, you will most likely have built a risk profile that covers:

■ the nature and level of the risks faced by your organisation; ■ the likelihood of adverse effects occurring and the level of disruption; ■ the costs associated with each type of risk; ■ the effectiveness of the controls in place to manage those risks.

Find out more

For more advice on risk profiling see pages 13–14 and 26–30.

Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999: www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/contents/made

HSE provides advice and templates on these processes – see our risk management site (www.hse.gov.uk/risk) for more information.

Health and safety management systems

A formal management system or framework can help you manage health and safety; it’s your decision whether to use one or not. Examples include:

■ national and international standards such as: ■ ISO 45001 Occupational health and safety management systems; ■ BS EN ISO 9001 Quality management system; ■ in-house standards, procedures or codes; ■ sector-specific frameworks such as: ■ the Energy Institute’s High-level framework for process safety management; ■ the Chemical Industries Association Responsible Care framework.

Although the language and methodology vary, the key actions can usually be traced back to Plan, Do, Check, Act (see the summary on pages 7–8).

Documentation

Keep health and safety documents functional and concise, with the emphasis on their effectiveness rather than sheer volume of paperwork.

Focusing too much on the formal documentation of a health and safety management system will distract you from addressing the human elements of its implementation – the focus becomes the process of the system itself rather than actually controlling risks.

Attitudes and behaviours

Effectively managing for health and safety is not just about having a management or safety management system. The success of whatever process or system is in place still hinges on the attitudes and behaviours of people in the organisation (this is sometimes referred to as the ‘safety culture’).

Find out more

See Part 2 for examples of positive and negative health and safety attitudes, and situations where there may be underlying cultural issues.

British Standards can be obtained in PDF or hard-copy formats from BSI: http://shop.bsigroup.com

Energy Institute’s High-level framework for process safety management: www.energyinst.org/eipss

Chemical Industries Association: www.cia.org.uk

Part 2: Are you doing what you need to do?

This part of the book gives you, as leaders, owners, trustees and line managers, examples of evidence to look for when deciding if you are doing what you need to do to manage for health and safety effectively. It will help you answer fundamental questions such as:

■ What are the strengths and weaknesses of your organisation’s health and safety performance, and are there any barriers to change? ■ How reliable and sustainable for the future are the measures currently in place? ■ If your organisation is getting risk control right, why is that? For example, does performance depend on one person’s dedication and enthusiasm or is it a key value across the organisation? ■ If there are problems, what are the underlying reasons, eg competence, resources, accountability, lack of engagement with the workforce? ■ Have you learned from situations where things have gone wrong?

The advice also reflects the areas that the health and safety regulator will consider when assessing the effectiveness of your arrangements.

The examples in the following pages with key areas