Services:
Risk Assessment & Awareness

Why is health and safety training important? Over 200 people are killed each year in accidents at work and over one million people are injured. Over two million suffer illnesses caused by, or made worse by, their work.

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Preventing accidents and ill health caused by work is a key priority for everyone at work. As the owner or manager of a business you know that competent employees are valuable. Providing health and safety information and training helps you to:

•    ensure your employees are not injured or made ill by the work they do;
•    develop a positive health and safety culture, where safe and healthy working becomes second nature to everyone;
•    find out how you could manage health and safety better;
•    meet your legal duty to protect the health and safety of your employees.

Article 3 of the Health & Safety at Work (Jersey) Law, 1989, sets out the general duty on employers to ensure their employees are not exposed to risks to health and safety, with Article 5 setting out the general duty placed on employers to ensure that persons other than their employees are not exposed to risks to their health and safety. Although you will not find the term risk assessment included in the Law, the duties set out in both Article 3 and Article 5 are limited by the phrase “so far as is reasonably practicable”. This phrase has been interpreted by the Courts as a need to balance the sacrifice, either in money, time or trouble, on the one hand, against the nature of the risk involved on the other hand. Where the sacrifice is grossly disproportionate to the risks involved, it is not considered to be “reasonably practicable”. This balancing of the sacrifice against the risk has evolved into the process of risk assessment, in line with the legal interpretation of “reasonably practicable”. Carrying out a risk assessment approach to managing health and safety is therefore seen to be an effective way of meeting the legal requirements placed on you as an employer under the Law.

In May 2009, Amendment No 4 was adopted by the States to amend Article 3 of the Health and Safety At Work (Jersey) Law 1989. This amendment will require all employers to identify and assess the risks to health and safety to which employees are exposed at work. It will also be the responsibility for all employers employing 5 or more employees, to prepare or revise a written statement to include details of the business general policy, the organisation of responsibilities with respect to the policy, the arrangements in force and measures taken to implement the policy and to ensure all employees are aware of the policy. Significantly, the amendment has stated that the written policy must be available to employees in a language that they can fully understand, this may not be English.
 
Training
Law At Work is offering a 3 hour interactive session to members of your Health and Safety Management Team or an appropriate person within your business on how to conduct, record and take forward workplace risk assessments using a checklist system. Delegates will have the opportunity to create risk assessments and be given templates for them to use within their business.

The cost to attend this course is £95.00 per head (£97.85 inc GST). Please contact Hayley Dewar on 887088 or hayley.dewar@lawatworkci.com