Take the chore out of safety

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) says that complying with health and safety law needn’t be such a pain. IOSH has produced some tools that are available free of charge to help businesses carry out their health and safety obligations successfully and easily. Safestartup has been produced specifically for small and medium-sized enterprises. It’s a simple, easy-to-use guide on basic health, safety and environmental information. The site, which is led by Alex, a friendly robot, covers registering a business, health and safety policies, welfare, insurance, reporting accidents and risk assessment, and it now contains information on hazards and basic control measures for 60 different types of businesses and occupations. IOSH has also produced a risk management toolkit that is specifically designed to help small firms tackle risks in their workplaces in a user-friendly way. The toolkit makes use of a series of work cards, checklists, info cards and workbooks and provides a step-by-step approach to help you create your own safety management system. The occupational health toolkit can also help guide your firm on where to find expert advice on some of the biggest causes workplace absence: stress and musculoskeletal disorders. Richard Jones, IOSH’s director of technical affairs, says: “By making use of our tools, businesses can get themselves on the right track towards complying with health and safety law. “241 people died in the UK’s workplaces last year and over 140,000 suffered injury. A further 2.2 million people suffer ill-health they believe was caused or made worse by work. Not taking health and safety seriously puts you and your staff at serious risk of harm. So don’t take the chance – use our free tools to help you make your workplace a safe place to be.”