Employers across Hampshire are being advised to review their health and safety measures or face the threat of unlimited fines and prison sentences of up to two years.
The advice, which comes at the start of this year's European Week for Health and Safety, is offered by leading commercial law firm Bond Pearce.
The week, which this year focuses on stress at work, is a useful reminder to companies to pay close attention to health and safety generally.
To coincide with the week, the firm has set out a ten-point action plan to help businesses not only prevent accidents at work, but protect themselves against prosecution for breaches of health and safety regulations.
Under the action plan, businesses are being advised to:
1. Undertake a business-wide risk assessment addressing each individual activity, the likelihood of risk arising from that activity, and the potential severity of any harm that could result.
2. Identify control measures to put into place to eliminate or, where not possible, reduce the risk.
3. Disseminate the risk assessment to all staff and put training into effect to ensure staff are aware of the risks involved in their job. They must also be fully trained in control measures to avoid those risks.
4. Put into place a system to ensure that the risk assessment, and consequent training, are brought to the attention of new employees, temporary employees, agency workers or sub-contractors.
5. Put into effect terms and conditions of employment which make failure to comply with internal health and safety training and rules a disciplinary offence.
6. Frequently review risk assessments to prevent these going out of date.
7. Fully document risk assessment and training.
8. Ensure at least one (preferably senior) person has a dedicated health and safety role. For companies, the board should take an active role in health and safety management.
9. Pay particular attention to proposals for compulsory accident investigations, duties to manage asbestos in premises, and duties to consider the risk to and created by employees driving on company business.
10. Seek full professional advice from a health and safety consultant, your lawyer and/or the Health and Safety Executive.
Jon Cooper of the Bond Pearce Insurance group said: "Every week an average five people are killed at work in the UK and another 3,000 are injured.
"Accidents at work cost British business more than £6 billion a year - through sick pay, lost production time, loss of contracts, loss of business reputation and increasing employer liability insurance costs. However, putting an effective health and safety plan into effect can not only help to reduce accidents but, should the worst happen, help to prevent businesses from going under.
"The requirement to risk-assess has been law for almost ten years, but still many companies either don't have adequate assessments - if they have them at all - or they do not regularly update them. We hope that more businesses will take this issue seriously and either start to put plans into place or review those that they have already developed."
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