Health and Safety Law
The main law that covers health and safety at work is the:
- Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the regulations made under the Act.
For free leaflets with a summary of what is required, visit: Health and Safety Executive Books.
These cover many topic areas and have useful guidance, such as:
- Health and safety in small businesses.
- Accident (includes first aid and how to report) and emergency.
- Electrical safety.
- Hazardous substances (and control of), fire and explosion.
- Personal and personnel issues at work (includes stress and violence).
- Plants, animals and zoonoses (diseases passed from animals to humans).
- Transport, machine safety and new technology.
- The work place (includes slips, trips, falls from height, noise and temperature).
For a copy of the Act, visit: Health and Safety at Work Act (Health and Safety Executive).
To buy copies of the regulations, visit: Office of Public Sector Information.
Enforcement
What our officers do:
- Inspect workplaces.
- Look in to accidents and complaints about workplace health, safety and welfare.
- Enforce health and safety at work laws. This is in retailers, wholesalers, offices, catering premises, leisure services and consumer services.
- Enforce smoke-free laws in public places. (For more about this, please visit: Smokefree workplaces and public spaces).
- Offer advice on health and safety law and good practice, over the phone and during workplace visits.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) do a similar service in manufacturing, health, building, agriculture and the education sectors. Also, where work is carried out in domestic premises. To report:
- If there is something in your workplace that could cause serious harm, visit: Report a health and safety issue.
- A fatal or major injuries only, visit: Contact Centre.
- RIDDOR, visit: Report RIDDOR.
We work with the HSE to reduce accidents and ill-health that relate to work.
Advice and training
Health and Safety Training available to Calderdale Businesses
Getting hurt at work or becoming ill through work is not a pleasant subject to think about. The reality is that 150 people a year lose their lives at work in Britain. In addition, it is estimated that around 246,000 serious injuries occur each year and an estimated 1.2 million suffer from ill health caused or made worse by work. 29.3 million working days are lost each year through workplace injuries and ill health.
It is a mistake to believe that these things happen in highly unusual or exceptional circumstances that never occur in your workplace. This is not the case. Identifying hazards and acting beforehand could usually have prevented these incidents from happening.
It does not have to be expensive, time consuming or complicated to implement health and safety measures. In fact, safer and more efficient working practices usually saves your business money. More importantly, it can help prevent injury and ill health.
Advice for the public
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 applies to work activities. This includes the requirement to ensure the safety of members of the public who may be affected by the work activities. This includes shops, public buildings and leisure facilities for example.
Environmental Health enforce the health and safety at work legislation in retailers, wholesalers, offices, catering premises, leisure services and consumer services.
The Health and Safety Executive enforce the legislation in manufacturing, health, construction, agriculture and education sectors and where work is carried out in domestic premises.
If you have a serious concern about public health and safety at a workplace contact the appropriate enforcing authority. Contact Environmental Health or the Health and Safety Executive on 0300 0031647.
If you are not sure who enforces the health and safety legislation at a particular workplace, please contact Environmental Health.
Advice for workers
All employees are entitled to a safe and healthy workplace.
The Health and Safety Executive provides lots of useful health and safety information.
- All workers are entitled to work in environments where risks to their health and safety are properly controlled. Under health and safety law, the main responsibility for this is down to employers. More information on an employees rights and responsibilities is available from Health and Safety Executive.
- In addition, employers must also display a poster (or distribute the information leaflet) to employees giving basic information on the law and points of contact. This is available from the Health and Safety Executive website: Health and Safety law poster.
- Involving workers is important for good health and safety. It means that everyone involved with a work activity, whether a manager, employee or contractor, participates in managing the risks associated with it. For more about this, visit: Health and Safety Executive Worker Involvement.
If you have a concern about general working conditions:
- We recommend that you raise this with your manager, the business owner or your health and safety representative.
- If you have done this and still have concerns, please contact Environmental Health or the Health and Safety Executive.
If you have a serious concern about your health and safety at work:
contact Environmental Health or the HSE using the Ways to contact HSE.
Environmental Health
Enforce the health and safety at work legislation in retailers, wholesalers, offices, catering premises, leisure services and consumer services.
The Health and Safety Executive
Enforce the legislation in manufacturing, health, construction, agriculture and education sectors and where work is carried out in domestic premises.
If you are not sure who enforces health and safety legislation at your workplace, please contact us.