Health and Safety at Work

Every worker, including telecommuters who work from home, are entitled to work in environments where risks to their health and safety are properly manage. Under the Health and Safety law, the primary responsibility for this is down to employers to do their assessments. Of course, as an employee, it is also your duty to report to your employers if you feel you or your colleagues’ health and safety is at risk.

I remember when I first worked as a theatre nurse in Singapore. We had to carry heavy sterile instruments in their heavy metal cases to set up ready for the operation. During that time, no one told you that you should use a trolley to wheel the instruments instead of carrying them with you, which easily weighed 5kg. Now I get back pain, due to repeated straining of carrying the heavy loads. If we had this law in place and had it communicated to us, I believe I would not be suffering with back pain now.

Also not forgetting those days where I often tripped over cables and machines wearing cloggs! It was always so scary when you trip over as you could be carrying anything of value. If only we had the cable cover to cover all the wires from the machines! What I hated the most was when we were doing eye surgery with students! Besides the anaesthetic machine, there was a big and bulky microscope, surgeon chairs and specialist eye equipment in a small operating theatre with plenty of students as well.

After coming to work in England, I have realised that this is such a great law to ensure everyone works in a safe environment. Employers have to make sure they carry out their yearly risk assessment and try to make the work place safe.

If you would like to get certified for your workplace, then SHEilds NEBOSH general certificate experts would be able to help you. It is an online course that covers the primary legal requirements for health and safety as laid out in UK legislation and best practices for managing health and safety in the workplace.

Disclosure: This is a collaboration post.