A Health and Safety Policy

Your health and safety policy statement is the starting point to managing health and safety in the workplace and sets out how you manage health and safety in your organisation. It is a unique document that shows who does what; and when and how they do it.

If you have five or more employees you will need to have a written health and safety policy statement. This should set out how you manage health and safety in your organisation.

You must carry out a risk assessment to identify any risks and then make decisions on how to manage such risks, so far as is reasonably practicable, to comply with health and safety law.

If you employ five or more employees, you must record:-

the significant findings of the assessment; and
any group of employees identified by it as being especially at risk.

This would then form part of the general policy of your business on how you deal with health and safety at work and the organisation and arrangements you have for putting that policy into practice.

The policy should be specific to your business, and should be clear about arrangements and organisation for health and safety at work.

It should influence all your activities, including the selection of people, equipment and materials, the way work is done and how you design goods and services.

A written statement of the policy and the organisation and arrangements for implementing and monitoring it shows your staff, and anyone else, that hazards have been identified and risks assessed, eliminated or controlled.

When you draw up or review your policy, you should discuss it with your employees or their representatives for health and safety.

Relevant HSE free leaflets:

An introduction to health and safety INDG259 [360kb]
which provides a document that you can use to record the significant findings, although you don’t have to use this form if you already have a method to record the findings.
Managing health and safety Five steps to success INDG 275 [50kb]

Resources