How often should health and safety policies be reviewed?

It’s the legal responsibility of every business to have a health and safety policy in place. Whilst the specifics of the policy will depend on the nature of your business, the working environment(s) that you operate in and the activities that you undertake, it’s important that every policy is reviewed regularly to ensure that it is still adequate and that you comply with current health and safety law.

It’s recommended that businesses review their health and safety policy in full at least once a year. However, this might not be enough to ensure legal compliance if your business has changed any aspect of what you do since the policy was last reviewed. Even small changes to your working processes could have an impact on things like hazards and risks of injury to workers, visitors or members of the public. Therefore, any alterations to working practices should trigger a review of your health and safety policy to ensure that you remain compliant with the regulations.

Some of the areas you may want to consider when you review your health and safety policy include:

• Whether your current policy is reflective of the business’ current plans, targets and priorities
• Whether any working practices have changed since the last review that might need additional risk assessment or health and safety measures to be taken
• The progress of any training programmes that form part of the health and safety policy and whether any updates or refreshers are needed
• Whether any health and safety failures or weaknesses have been identified since the last review and what actions are needed to stop any reoccurrence
• How health and safety and the wellbeing of employees and visitors is being measured or monitored and whether any further measures are required to show how effectively the current policy is performing.

It’s important that all employees are informed when your health and safety policy is amended or expanded, and any additional actions or measures needed are communicated to workers and incorporated into any new training materials or programmes.

Legal support with reviewing your health and safety policy

We can help businesses to ensure that their health and safety policy covers everything required for their specific needs and the activities they undertake, helping them to stay compliant with the law. Call our health and safety experts on 0161 696 6250 to find out more.