As an employer you must comply with the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974. The main purpose of this act is to secure the health and safety of everyone at work, whether employed or self-employed. This Act requires employers to regularly review equipment, premises and systems of work to identify hazards and reduce the risks to cutomers, employees and the self-employed. This is an umbrella act and many regulations fall under this act and must be complied with. Got a question email margaret@healthandsafetywise.co.uk

You need to appoint a competent person or people who can make arrangements for the appropriate health and safety information and training to be carried out. This can be a combination of any or all of the following: An employee, a consultant or online advice.

This requires you to carry out risk assessments if you have 5 or more employees. Significant findings must be documented.  for more info email margaret@healthandsafetywise.co.uk

For more information on how to document risk in your workplace, view our risk assessments section.

This act covers a range of health and safety and welfare issues, including the following: Lighting, heating, canteen facilities, washroom facilities, seating and ventilation. Further details of these can be found throughout our website.

This regulation covers visual display units, for examples computers and hand held devices. It sets out the requirements you must comply with should your employees use these units.

For more information, visit the DSE section.

This requires employees to provide suitable personal protective equipment, often refered to as PPE. This includes clothing such as safety boots, high visibility jackets, ear protection and gloves.

For more information, visit the PPE section.

To comply with this act, you need to ensure that all equipment including machinery is safe. This covers a wide range of requirements including guards on machinery to forklift truck operations.

This regulation covers tasks such as lifting boxes of office paper by hand, to moving heavy objects using bodily force. This regulation effects every organisation whatever the size.

For more information, visit the Manual Handling section.

To comply with these regulations you must at least appoint a responsible person to take charge of first aid arrangements and equipment.

For more information, visit the Accidents at Work section.

To comply with this as an employer you must display a Health and safety poster.

Click to get your Health and Safety poster.

As an employer you must take out insurance against accidents and occupational ill health of your employees.

For more information, visit the Compensation Claims section.

As an employer you are required to notify the health and safety executive of certain injuries, diseases and dangerous events. This you can do by phone, online or in writing. The simplest way is to go online to the RIDDOR website.

For more information on RIDDOR, visit the Accidents at Work section.

To comply with these regulations you must protect your employees from hearing damage. Ways to do this can range from keeping noise levels in the workplace below the maximum amount of decibels to providing ear defenders.

Click for more information on Noise at Work regulations.

This regulation requires that electrical systems are safe and maintained in a safe condition by the people in control of them.

Click for more information about electricty at work regulations.

To comply with this regulation you must control substances used or stored in your workplace that are hazardous to health

For more information, visit the COSHH section.