Health and Safety Training – What You Need to Know

Source: HSE

According to the HSE, over 200 people are killed each year in accidents at work in the UK and over one million people are injured. Over two million suffer illnesses caused by, or made worse by, their work.

“The law requires that you provide whatever information, instruction and training is needed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of your employees.” (Health & Safety Executive)

In a document entitled ‘Health and Safety; What you need to know‘ the HSE summarise the reasons why everyone needs to be trained.

Providing health and safety information and training helps you to:

• ensure your employees are not injured or made ill by the work they do;
• develop a positive health and safety culture, where safe and healthy working becomes second nature to everyone;
• find out how you could manage health and safety better;
• meet your legal duty to protect the health and safety of your employees

Effective training;

• will contribute towards making your employees competent in health and safety;
• can help your business avoid the distress that accidents and ill health cause;
• can help you avoid the financial costs of accidents and occupational ill health. Don’t forget that your insurance doesn’t cover all these costs. Damaged products, lost production and demotivated staff can all result.

There are some things to consider. First is to decide what training your organisation needs. This involves an assessment of the responsibilities and a review of your risk assessments to determine the areas that need to be covered.

Secondly decide on your training priorities, such as inductions for new workers and training required by law.

Thirdly choose your training method. Advanced or specialised training may need to be done in a classroom based environment, but general basic safety training can be done quickly and effectively online.

Fourth, deliver the training. If done online your staff can log in and begin the course, and managers can track their progress. For specialist training you may need to send staff to a course or bring a trainer in.

Lastly, check the training has worked. This can be done via an assessment, observations, checking assessment results to identify areas that may need further time, and keeping training records.

The full ‘Health & Safety Training’ document can be found here.

Basic online Health & Safety training can be found here.