Health and Safety

As the business owner, you’re legally responsible for maintaining a safe work environment and complying with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. This is regulated by the Health and Safety Executive or your local authority. Staff, customers, clients and anyone who visits your premises who could be at risk from your work activities should be considered when carrying out risk assessments. 

By law, you’re required to have a health and safety policy, and it should be in writing if you have five or more employees. You have a legal obligation to ensure your policy is up to date, appropriate for your business sector, and meets all legal regulations to help keep your staff safe and prevent accidents from happening. If your policy is out of date, it won’t comply with legal requirements. 

It is recommended that you carry out a policy review each year to make sure it is effective and complies with current business laws. It also needs to be reviewed if there’s been an incident or you’ve made changes to your business or the work your staff do. 

Our members can access a free health and safety policy template on the FSB Legal Hub.  

If you’re hiring new staff or want to give your team a refresher, you and your employees can access on-demand online training across a range of topics. Call the legal advice line and they can help you with staff access. 

• Construction industry and working at heights 
• Emergency planning 
• Fire safety and risk assessments 
• First aid at work 
• Food safety basics 
• Food safety rating and prosecutions 
• Gas and electricity 
• Health and safety policies 
• Risk assessments 
• Health and safety signs 

Occupational health involves supporting employees or employers with physical and mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Occupational health advice is useful if you have an employee off sick or returning from an absence, to see what accommodations can be made.   
 
Some organisations may choose to use an external occupational health advisor to carry out staff occupational health assessments.  As a small business, you may not have an occupational health policy or scheme. In this case, you should take the advice of both the employee and the employee's doctor on any occupational health adjustments required in the workplace where necessary. 

For guidance and template documents, FSB members can access the health and safety resources on the FSB Legal Hub, or phone our experts for advice.