What is a health and safety policy statement?

A health and safety policy statement is found at the beginning of a health and safety policy. It outlines an organisation’s commitment to protecting the welfare of employees and those affected by its activities.

The policy statement establishes the organisation’s health and safety objectives, providing a benchmark against which the organisation can measure its performance and make improvements.

What should a health and safety policy statement cover?

Here are aspects you might consider covering in your company health and safety policy statement:

• Accident prevention. A commitment to preventing accident and work-related ill health. This involves identifying potential hazards and taking steps to mitigate risks before they cause harm.
• Risk management. How health and safety risks are managed in the workplace, including the processes for assessing, avoiding, and controlling risks.
• Instructions, information, and training. A commitment to providing employees with clear instructions and information about their roles and responsibilities regarding health and safety, and a guarantee that all employees receive adequate training to ensure competence in safely performing their work.
• Personal protective equipment (PPE). Your organisation’s approach to providing the right PPE to employees, ensuring its proper use and maintenance.
• Employee consultation. How your organisation will consult with employees on matters affecting their health and safety, fostering a collaborative approach to workplace safety.
• Equipment and facilities safety. A commitment to providing and maintaining safe plant and equipment that is appropriate to the tasks being carried out, outlining procedures for the safe handling and use of substances.
• Emergency procedures. A commitment to implementing effective emergency procedures, such as evacuation plans in case of fire or other significant incidents.

Finally, the statement might commit to regularly reviewing and revising the health and safety policy to ensure it remains effective and relevant to your organisation’s operations.

Health and safety policy statement example

Here is a sample health and safety policy statement to help you.

Statement of intent

We will ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of everyone involved in, or affected by, our work activities.

Furthermore, we recognise that most of our activities, whether carried out by the company or an individual, have some impact on the environment. Our aim is to reduce the impact of our own activities through a structured programme of continuous improvement.

In managing health and safety and environmental practice, we will create a culture that ensures that sound health and safety management is afforded the same priority as other business objectives and becomes an integral part of everything we do.

Whilst every employee, visitor and contractor have a personal responsibility to control and minimise risks present in their own activities; we recognise that responsibility for the organisation of health and safety issues rests with our management team.

We have therefore adopted a risk assessment approach to the management of health and safety issues, ensuring that hazards arising from our work activities are identified and addressed as a part of ‘business as usual’.

In generating and maintaining our culture for health and safety, we will enrol the support and commitment of all stakeholders by:

• Allocating formal responsibilities in health and safety to our employees, suppliers and business partners;
• Providing adequate budget for health and safety management;
• Appointing competent health and safety resource for deployment across the company;
• Providing health and safety information, instruction, training and supervision at all levels necessary to ensure that staff are competent to supervise or undertake their work activities and are aware of any related hazards and the measures to be taken to protect against them, and giving adequate information on relevant hazards to any persons whose health and safety might be affected by them;
• Monitoring, measuring, auditing and reporting on our health and safety performance;
• Monitoring the safety performance of contractors who work for us;
• Working closely with appropriate external agencies, and within our industry, to ensure our continued adoption of best-practice solutions in health and safety management.

We will promote a positive health and safety culture.

We will publish and maintain a series of supporting policies and procedures detailing our Organisation and Arrangements for health and safety and setting out our approved safe systems of work. These supporting policies and procedures represent an integral part of our Health and Safety Policy.

We will review this policy at least annually and revise as necessary to ensure it continues to effectively meet our health and safety requirements and legal responsibilities.

Name of most senior manager

Helpdesk – health and safety support when you need it

Do you own or manage a small or medium-sized business? If so, you might be interested in our Helpdesk service.

With Helpdesk you have continuous access to competent health and safety advice and a library of resources, including a choice of health and safety policy statement templates which can be tailored to your organisation’s requirements.

Find out about Helpdesk on our website, or contact our friendly team on 0203 011 4242/info@praxis42.com