UK employers must provide suitable PPE free of charge to workers who need it. This article explains the 2022 regulatory update, the assessment process, and what proper PPE management looks like in practice.
COSHH covers how UK employers must prevent or control worker exposure to substances hazardous to health. This article explains the assessment process, the hierarchy of control, and what documentation auditors expect to see.
Managing health and safety at work is less about paperwork and more about making sensible decisions about risk - the paperwork just records what has been decided.
This section of the Knowledge Base covers the practical side of managing health and safety at work - what the law requires, how to meet those requirements in a way that actually works, and the topic areas most organisations need to think about. It is UK-focused but written to be useful to readers elsewhere who can apply the same principles under their own local legislation.
Health and safety management is the set of activities an organisation uses to identify workplace hazards, assess the risks they create, decide on controls and then put those controls into practice. Every employer has legal duties around this, and every organisation - whatever its size - has to make practical decisions about how to discharge them.
The scope of the topic is broader than most people realise. It covers physical safety, occupational health, mental health and wellbeing, the management of contractors and visitors, emergency preparedness, fire safety, driving, ergonomics, and the use of hazardous substances. A well-run system treats all of these as one integrated whole rather than as separate administrative silos.
In the UK, the foundation of health and safety law is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The Act sets out general duties on employers, the self-employed, people in control of premises, manufacturers and workers. The detailed requirements are contained in topic-specific regulations - the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 covers risk assessment and general management duties, while regulations such as COSHH, LOLER, PUWER, the DSE Regulations 1992 and the RIDDOR 2013 address specific hazards and activities.
The UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the national regulator and publishes guidance that is widely treated as the benchmark for what "reasonably practicable" looks like in practice. Local authorities enforce health and safety law in some sectors (retail, offices, hospitality, most services), with the HSE handling higher-risk sectors including construction, manufacturing, agriculture and major hazard industries.
ISO 45001 is the international standard for occupational health and safety management systems. It provides a structured way to manage H&S using the plan-do-check-act cycle familiar from ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, which is why many organisations run integrated management systems rather than separate ones. Certification to ISO 45001 is voluntary - the underlying legal duties apply whether an organisation is certified or not - but certification is often required or preferred by customers, and supports SSIP assessments and similar pre-qualification schemes.
Organisations that do not need certification still benefit from using ISO 45001 as a framework. It provides a sensible way to organise the H&S work and makes it easy to add certification later if the business case changes.
Articles in this section are written for the people who actually have to manage health and safety day to day - SHEQ managers, operations managers, business owners, consultants and auditors. The guidance is practical rather than legalistic, and focused on what works in real organisations rather than what a textbook says should happen.
Each article covers a single topic in enough detail to take action on, with practical tools and document templates linked through the alphaZ library. Articles are updated as legislation and guidance change, so what you see reflects the current position rather than what used to be true ten years ago.
The best H&S systems are the ones that match what the organisation actually does. A generic template that has been lifted from a Google search will not protect anyone and will not survive an audit. Start with the work, identify what can go wrong, and build the system around that.
The common trap is treating H&S as something that exists to keep regulators happy. It is not. It exists because workplaces can hurt or kill people, and a well-run system prevents that. The paperwork follows from the decisions, not the other way round.
Running H&S alongside quality and environment as one integrated system has made a real difference for us - one manual, one audit cycle, one management review. The temptation when you are starting out is to make the system too complex; a small system that everyone understands beats a large one that nobody reads.
Clients often ask me whether they really need ISO 45001. My answer is the same as for any ISO standard - if a customer or tender requires it, yes. If not, the structure is still useful but certification is a choice.
What I never recommend is ignoring the underlying legal duties. Those apply regardless of certification, and the documented system you build to meet them is the same one that gets you certified later if you need it.
Starting from scratch is easier than most organisations expect.