What is a health and safety audit and why have one?
Published on November 10th, 2022 | by Sophie West
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defines a health and safety audit as: “A collection of independent information on the efficiency, effectiveness and reliability of the total health & safety management system and drawing up plans for corrective action.”
A health and safety audit will assist you in the development of your health and safety documentation and ensure continual improvement, reducing the risk to your business by highlighting areas for development.
By law, do I need a health and safety audit?
There is no legal requirement for businesses to conduct a health and safety audit. However, the HSE guidance document HSG65 Successful Health and Safety Management recommends that audits are undertaken.
Depending on your industry, it may be a condition of your insurance cover to conduct regular audits, for example if you work in construction, engineering or manufacturing.
Why complete a health and safety audit?
The law says that every business must have a policy for managing health and safety, and if you have five or more employees you must write your policy down. An audit will highlight the effectiveness of your current system and help you develop and implement improvements to your health and safety management system.
There are multiple benefits to carrying out health and safety audits. These include:
- Improved safety & compliance: Undertaking audits annually will help you understand your position in relation to achieving health and safety compliance and identify any immediate hazards posing harm to your employees. This ultimately improves safety in the workplace by reducing accidents and incidents and improving communication of your organisation’s procedures. A good health and safety audit will ensure your business remains compliant with regulations and law. It will create a culture of compliance amongst your employees and the entire organisation.
- Cost saving: HSE statistics reveal the human and financial cost of failing to address health and safety are that millions of working days are lost due to work-related illness and injury. Implementing regular audits will increase productivity as employees will be healthier, happier and more motivated.
Who will complete my audits?
You can produce your own audits but remember, the person completing any health and safety audit must be a “competent person” and independant to the part of the organisation being audited.
Most businesses prefer to outsource their audits to an external specialist, like Agility Risk & Compliance, to ensure they stay compliant. Our team of qualified health and safety consultants can carry out full health and safety audits at one, or all, of your premises. These audits would cover all of the physical parts of the premises and work activities, as well as a review of your health and safety documentation. But remember, as the employer, managing health and safety will still be your legal duty.
If you would like to speak to a member of our friendly team to see how we could help with health and safety in your business then please feel free to give us a call on 01527 571611.
