What Are the Main Areas That Companies Could Fail a Health and Safety Audit?
Health and safety audits are (or should be) common place in many businesses across the United Kingdom.
These can be internal audits completed by a conscientious and well-trained member of staff or management, external audits where a specialist consultant is employed to visit the premises or place of work, and the dreaded inspection/audit carried out by the HSE or relevant authority depending on the unique situation.
Now for most businesses an internal audit is the first port of call and we would even go as far to say you should have a member of staff or management carry out a simple audit first even if you have booked a specialist consultant to come and complete a thorough inspection at a later date as this will give you a heads up of potential problems and areas of improvements before the consultant arrives.
The benefit of this is it also gives the employer a chance to compare notes at the end of the professional inspection as there may be areas internal members of staff or management have not even considered that may have been highlighted by the professional inspector.
This being said working in the same environment for many years can lead to a slight misinterpretation of what may or may be acceptable regarding health and safety.
You may well have heard an employees say "oh well we have always done it like that" when referring to a task or process, so in this case a potential hazard could be totally ignored as the process has been accepted as the norm.
Another potential problem that could arise from an internal audit is being bias towards the management or company.
If an employee highlights multiple health and safety issues that require considerable investment and time to rectify the employee may feel that the management may frown on this individual.
If a member of higher management completes an internal audit they may not be able to justify the cost involved with adopting new equipment or systems.
This is why it is always best to have a unbiased professional come and complete an audit.
So what will the professionals mainly look out for? Paperwork, the health and safety policy statement and procedures, risk assessments, COSHH assessments, training records, induction records, meeting minutes and the fire risk assessment and evacuation plan.
Make sure that everything on paper relates to what is happening on the shop floor, site or general work area.
Once the paperwork has been scrutinised the inspector will me making the rounds of all work processes looking for anything that may contravene legislation, so if you work at heights make sure you are aware of the working at heights regulations and so on.
The assessor will more than likely speak to the general staff to gather information about working practices and attitude towards health and safety.
These can be internal audits completed by a conscientious and well-trained member of staff or management, external audits where a specialist consultant is employed to visit the premises or place of work, and the dreaded inspection/audit carried out by the HSE or relevant authority depending on the unique situation.
Now for most businesses an internal audit is the first port of call and we would even go as far to say you should have a member of staff or management carry out a simple audit first even if you have booked a specialist consultant to come and complete a thorough inspection at a later date as this will give you a heads up of potential problems and areas of improvements before the consultant arrives.
The benefit of this is it also gives the employer a chance to compare notes at the end of the professional inspection as there may be areas internal members of staff or management have not even considered that may have been highlighted by the professional inspector.
This being said working in the same environment for many years can lead to a slight misinterpretation of what may or may be acceptable regarding health and safety.
You may well have heard an employees say "oh well we have always done it like that" when referring to a task or process, so in this case a potential hazard could be totally ignored as the process has been accepted as the norm.
Another potential problem that could arise from an internal audit is being bias towards the management or company.
If an employee highlights multiple health and safety issues that require considerable investment and time to rectify the employee may feel that the management may frown on this individual.
If a member of higher management completes an internal audit they may not be able to justify the cost involved with adopting new equipment or systems.
This is why it is always best to have a unbiased professional come and complete an audit.
So what will the professionals mainly look out for? Paperwork, the health and safety policy statement and procedures, risk assessments, COSHH assessments, training records, induction records, meeting minutes and the fire risk assessment and evacuation plan.
Make sure that everything on paper relates to what is happening on the shop floor, site or general work area.
Once the paperwork has been scrutinised the inspector will me making the rounds of all work processes looking for anything that may contravene legislation, so if you work at heights make sure you are aware of the working at heights regulations and so on.
The assessor will more than likely speak to the general staff to gather information about working practices and attitude towards health and safety.
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