Legislation Updates
UK Health and Safety legislation is complex and fluid. Regulations are constantly evolving with revisions generally being issued in the months of April and October.
By acting as your Competent Person, Lighthouse will have a responsibility to keep you informed of any alterations that apply to your organisation’s operations.
Your nominated Lighthouse Health and Safety consultant will be proactive in advising you of these changes, along with establishing procedure to implement revisions of your relevant documentation including the Health and Safety policy and general working Risk Assessments.
Draft alterations to legislation are usually communicated by the government at least 6 months prior to release. This allows a consultation period for experts to critique and provide their views on the changes.
At Lighthouse, all of our Health and Safety consultants are required to keep their knowledge of relevant laws up to date. They do this by maintaining a regular Continuous Professional Development (CPD) record and have this audited by their educational awarding body; the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).
Your Health and Safety consultant will therefore be aware of any drafted legislative updates that will likely affect your operations. This allows them to draw them to your attention, discuss the implications with you and start planning for implementation once passed.
It will often be the case that internal practices and accompanying safety documentation will need to be altered and communicated.
We will consult with you on these changes, helping to draft the new versions of your documentation and streamlining the process of implementing them within your Health and Safety management system.
Some changes to legislation may be minor tweaks that can be dealt with simply by an internal memo. Once such example was the extension of the reporting period for incidents falling under the ‘Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013’ (RIDDOR).
Legislative changes may also result in your organisation being required to install something completely new into your Health and Safety management system.
Perhaps the most pertinent recent example was the introduction of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order in 2005 which placed the responsibility on the duty holder (occupier) of commercial premises to self-assess against Fire Safety legislation. Ultimately this meant that all duty-holders had to source a person competent to conduct a Fire Risk Assessment of the operational locations.
As you can see, legislative alterations need to be interpreted in the correct way for any organisation. Lighthouse’ Health and Safety consultants have the necessary competencies to assist you in understanding your statutory obligations as they fluctuate and change under UK Health and Safety law.
