Appendix 1 - Health and Safety - Legal Aspects

What health and safety law requires

The basis of British health and safety law is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The Act sets out the general duties, which employers have towards employees and members of the public, and employees have to themselves and to each other. General Practices are subject to the requirements of the Act, notably:

·         A written safety policy (if there are 5 or more staff)

·         Risk assessments and risk reduction programmes to be carried out

·         Sharps and biological waste materiel are properly disposed of

·         Accidents are recorded

These duties are qualified in the Act by the principle of 'so far as is reasonably practicable'. In other words, the degree of risk in a particular job or workplace needs to be balanced against the time, trouble, cost and physical difficulty of taking measures to avoid or reduce the risk. What the law requires here is what good management and common sense would lead employers to do anyway: that is, to look at what the risks are and take sensible measures to tackle them.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992 (the Management Regulations) generally make more explicit what employers are required to do to manage health and safety under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Like the Act, they apply to every work activity.

The main requirement on employers is to carry out a risk assessment. Employers with five or more employees need to record the significant findings of the risk assessment. Risk assessment should be straightforward in a simple workplace such as a typical office. It should only be complicated if it deals with serious hazards such as those on a nuclear power station, a chemical plant, laboratory or an oil rig.

The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) require employers and others to report accidents and some diseases that arise out of or in connection with work. These reports enable the enforcing authorities to identify where and how risks arise and to investigate serious accidents.

What needs to be reported?

Under RIDDOR you must report some work-related accidents, diseases and dangerous occurrences. This requirement covers all work activities, but not all incidents.

The following are reportable if they arise 'out of or in connection with work':

• Accidents which result in an employee or a self-employed person dying, suffering a major injury, or being absent from work or unable to do their normal duties for more than three days.
• Accidents which result in a person not at work suffering an injury and being taken to a hospital, or if the accident happens at a hospital, suffering a major injury.
• An employee or self-employed person suffering one of the specified work-related diseases.
• One of the specified 'dangerous occurrences' - these do not necessarily result in injury but have the potential to do significant harm.

Back to Occupational Health advice

Back to Home Page