Health and Safety Policy Guidance

All Employers with five or more employees are required by Law to provide a written document detailing the business's or organisation's general policy for health and safety and the organisation and arrangements for carrying out the policy. 

When drawing up a Health and Safety Policy it is sometimes hard to know where to start and it can also be difficult to know what sort of information to include. This Guideline Health and Safety Policy has been produced to help and guide Employers when they are documenting their Health and Safety Policy and health and safety arrangements.

The Health and Safety Policy Statement is available from the Health and Safety Executive website at: www.hse.gov.uk.

The Guideline Health and Safety Policy document is not a comprehensive legal document and Employers may need to include further information following their own assessment of workplace hazards.  Employers should also regularly review and update the policy and documentation to ensure that it reflects the hazards that are likely to occur within their business and to ensure that it reflects any changes to the current Health and Safety Regulations.

Also further guidance on writing a health and safety policy can be found in the document 'Writing your Health and Safety Policy Statement - How to prepare a safety policy statement for a small business' available from HSE Books.  This can be purchased from HSE Books by telephone order on 01787 881165 or from good bookshops.  Alternatively, the publications area of the HSE web site is a good source of information at www.hse.gov.uk.

The following documents can be downloaded free of charge, as .pdf documents:

• An Introduction to Health and Safety: INDG 259
• Managing Health and Safety: INDG 275
• Director's responsibilities for Health and Safety: INDG 343
• Health and Safety Policy Statement: HSC6