18th August 2020
HSE Focus On Manchester Based Businesses
What’s Happening?
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is contacting businesses in Greater Manchester to make sure workplaces are COVID-secure to help tackle the local outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases.
Inspectors will be carrying out spot checks of workplaces across Greater Manchester, putting employers on the spot, and making sure that they are complying with the latest COVID-Secure guidance relevant to their sector.
What is COVID-Secure?
Being COVID-secure means that businesses need to follow the government guidelines and make the necessary changes to their business activities in order to manage the risk and protect workers and others from coronavirus. Businesses can do this by following a 5-step approach:
- Step 1. Carry out a COVID-19 risk assessment
- Step 2. Develop increased cleaning, hand washing, and hygiene procedures
- Step 3. Take all reasonable steps to help people work from home
- Step 4. Maintain 2m social distancing where possible
- Step 5. Where people cannot be 2m apart, manage transmission risk
Our team of Health and Safety Consultants at Lighthouse have extensive experience in applying the sector-specific guidance to all manner of businesses, and so for any assistance with making your organisation COVID-Secure, please call our advice line today on 0845 459 1724.
Inspections
As HSE inspections across the country are on-going, the regulator has been utilising a number of different ways to gather intelligence and reach out to businesses across the UK with a combination of site visits, phone calls, and through the collection of supporting visual evidence such as photos and video footage.
HSE and local authority inspectors are finding some common issues across a range of sectors that include: failing to provide arrangements for monitoring, supervising and maintaining social distancing, failing to introduce an adequate cleaning regime – particularly at busy times of the day – and providing access to welfare facilities to allow employees to frequently wash their hands with warm water and soap.
To support businesses, HSE is providing advice and guidance to manage risk and protect workers. Where some employers are not managing the risk, HSE will take action which can range from the provision of specific advice, issuing enforcement notices, and stopping certain work practices until they are made safe. Be warned though – where businesses fail to comply, this could lead to prosecution.
