• Health and Safety Management for New Businesses
• Risk Assessment
• Environment for SMEs
• Accidents cost Money!

There are many issues to be addressed by the manager of a new business. In this article, Andy Saunders sets out why a health and safety management system ought to be among the early issues addressed, not left until problems occur.

So you've got a new business? You've got the product, got the funding, know your market, and are ready to launch. Why should you worry about health & safety? Can't that wait until you made some money?

Well, it would be nice to think so, but in fact there are many reasons why you need to be thinking about health and safety early in the life of your business. First, this is when the culture of the company is established and the attitude towards health and safety is part of the culture. Culture is how you go about doing business, and about how you treat people. In today's business, you will be trying to retain your top talent, particularly the computing specialists who will help your new business expand its information technology. The company culture sets the tone for how they feel about working in your company; valued or just another "human resource". In a company where "human resources" can be replaced, an injured employee may not be seen as a problem, but how do his colleagues feel about the company that injured him and then replaces him? Is this the caring employer they want to work for? Maybe they will soon be looking around for somewhere else to work. A company that considers health and safety a high priority sends a powerful message to its staff that they really are important.

Other reasons why employers need to pay attention to health and safety are the costs and disruption that can result from a health or safety related incident. Your insurance will probably cover your liabilities to injured persons, but it will not cover fines imposed for breaches of safety regulations. There are also many indirect costs which cannot be insured for, and which will not have been included in your carefully worked out cash-flow forecast. These include the lost time of the injured person (and cost of any temporary replacement), time spent investigating the incident and completing report forms, and the bad publicity that can come from an accident and ensuing court proceedings. All these can mean big trouble to a start-up company struggling to make a profit.

The justification for managing health and safety thus goes beyond the basic reasons of complying with the law. But nevertheless, the law is the ultimate reason why you must address health and safety issues. You might think that you can get away with a few technical breaches of regulations, but if an incident occurs which results in an official investigation, your defence in a court will be very weak. The law can hit you two ways for health and safety violations, through the criminal courts for breaches of legislation, and through the civil courts as the injured party seeks to claim damages.

It is therefore important to establish health and safety on a firm footing in the new company. This does not mean just putting up a few signs and hoping that things don't go wrong, but establishing a health and safety management system along the lines described in the Health & Safety Executive's guide "Successful Health and Safety Management" (HSG65).

The health and safety management system should be a systematic approach to preventing incidents from occurring. It should apply the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" cycle to managing health and safety. The planning stage is to identify what you need in place to prevent your employees getting hurt. "Getting hurt" covers all kinds of injury and illness, both physical and mental. You need to plan how you will prevent people's work from causing them (or others) harm. This is again part of the culture of the company. For instance, if your company always expects people to work long hours, or use poorly designed workstations, you should not be surprised if you get people suffering from stress or ergonomics related injuries. These can be just as disruptive to the running of a company as broken limbs.

What sort of things do you need to pay attention to as you set up your new business? Your safety policy, for a start. The safety policy is both a legal requirement, under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, and a way to set the tone for the entire business. How do you want to be seen as a business? As someone who does the minimum that they can, or someone who cares about their employees? Do you want to accept some "near misses" or are you serious about wanting to prevent your staff getting hurt?

The safety policy usually also contains details of the "arrangements" for health and safety. You need to plan how you are going to maintain a safe workplace, and who is responsible. As an employer, you are responsible for ensuring the safety of everyone who could be impacted by your business. This includes not only your employees, but also agency staff, visitors, contractors working on your premises and passers-by.

Carrying out risk assessments is the way to determine what health and safety arrangements you need. The Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require you to carry out and record an assessment of the risks in your workplace. Once you have identified how people could be hurt, you will need to install "controls" to minimise the risk of injury. These may be physical controls, work methods, or training. Once you have established what is to be done, you need to record these "arrangements" in the safety policy document, so that everyone knows what is expected. You also need to assign responsibilities for health and safety actions, and these need to be recorded in the policy too.

The safety management system should be a closed loop system, so there need to be regular inspections to ensure that the safety "arrangements" are operating correctly. This includes checking physical controls and ensuring that safe work practices are being followed. The system itself should be audited periodically to ensure that it still makes sense for the business, and is delivering the results that were expected.

If you previously worked for a large company, but are now setting up on your own, you probably had access to a wide network of support services to deal with every eventuality. A legal department to advise you about changes to regulations, a company doctor or nurse that you could turn to for advice about someone who was off sick for a long period, a safety officer to turn to for advice about how many fire extinguishers were needed, and where. Now you are on your own, without this network of support. You may need to establish a link with a consultant who can help you on these issues when they arise. A consultant can also help you to establish your health and safety management system, and ensure that it meets all the legal necessities as well as meeting the needs of your business.

The cost-benefits of a health and safety management system come from the savings of fines, lost time and disruption which have probably not been included in your business plan anyway. Health and safety management systems are about risk management, and your bank manager would probably rather invest in a management system than have surprises that you did not foresee.

Andy Saunders is with QES Connect Ltd. He can be contacted on (01449) 711024 or e-mail as@qesconnect.co.uk

Since 1992, businesses employing five or more people have had to carry out assessments of the risks to the health and safety of their employees and others affected by their activities. Some may see this as another burden on business, but if carried out properly, a risk assessment should benefit the business by preventing disruptive accidents and illnesses, both minor and major. The Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999 state that the risk assessment should be "suitable and sufficient". This means that it must consider all the significant hazards and must include measures to control the risk to an acceptable level. What is acceptable is left to the business to decide, but it must take into account the number of people who might be at risk, as well as the severity of the injury or illness they might sustain. Businesses will also want to consider the risk of prosecution and claims for damages if someone is hurt.

The principle of risk assessment is now well established in safety law, and special risk assessments are required, for example, for hazardous substances, display screen equipment, manual handling and when selecting personal protective equipment. When assessing who might be affected, the regulations highlight the need to consider particularly vulnerable people such as those under the age of 18, and new and expectant mothers.

A good risk assessment will identify what might cause harm (the hazard) and then assess how this might harm people, and how many people could be affected. A scoring system helps to rank the risks. The level of risk is affected by control measures that are already in place, but the assessment needs to consider the possibility of these controls not being used, or not working. Controls may need to be augmented or modified to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. Some examples of controls include physical controls (guards and interlocks) and working practices (regular inspection of equipment, and keeping work areas tidy). Training forms part of the risk control strategy, to ensure that workers understand correct working practices, and the correct use of control measures that have been put in place to keep them safe. Personal protective equipment may be required, but it must not be a substitute for other forms of risk control.

Many companies overlook the need to close the loop once risk assessment has been done. The risk assessment identifies the control measures that should be in place and working. A closed-loop safety management system includes regular inspections to ensure that control measures are still working, and being used. Safety equipment that is not being used, or used incorrectly, does not achieve the desired result, and the risk assessment is no longer valid. Inspection checklists should be created which relate directly to the risk assessment and the risk control measures in it.

Finally, risk assessment is not a "one-off" activity. Risk assessments need to be reviewed periodically, in particular when changes occur such as workplace layout changes or new equipment. This ensures that the business and its employees continue to be protected.

Andy Saunders is with QES Connect Ltd. He can be contacted on (01449) 711024 or e-mail as@qesconnect.co.uk

If you would like help with risk assessment, safety management systems, or training, contact QES Connect Ltd, who will be pleased to assist you.

Industry has taken giant strides in the last ten years in improving its environmental performance. Legislation has pushed larger companies into compliance, and some companies have turned environmental reporting into an art form. But most managers of smaller companies would not consider that much of this legislation applies to them. The Producer Responsibility (Packaging Waste) Regulations, for instance, set thresholds of £2 million annual turnover and 50 Tonnes of packaging throughput before companies become liable to submit data. Similarly, the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations set thresholds way above the levels of activities of many small companies.

Why, then, should managers of small companies be concerned about environmental management? Well, like most things in business, it comes down to risk. In the same way that most managers will have carried out an assessment of the risks of injury or ill health to those associated with the activity, managers need to look at the possible impact on the environment of their company's activities. Some questions that might be asked are:

• Can your processes result in pollution?
• What does the law say about disposal of your waste?
• Should your process be authorised by the local authority for emissions to air?
• Does your oil storage comply with the new regulations?

Impact assessment offers the manager the opportunity to identify the risks both from legislative requirements and from potential pollution as well as money-saving waste minimisation and energy saving initiatives. If included as part of the feasibility study for new projects, it can also improve the prediction of profitability by avoiding the need for expensive changes later.

Environmental impact assessment is the cornerstone of both the International Standards (ISO14001 and EMAS), but you don't need to install the complete system to benefit from the method. In most small companies, an initial assessment can be carried out quite quickly and will provide useful guidance to help prioritise projects for improvement. It may identify opportunities for savings by reductions in fuel and energy costs, raw material usage, or production losses, all of which appear on the bottom line. It may also save you an expensive visit to the court!

If you would like QES Connect Ltd. to help your company with an initial environmental impact assessment or environmental management system development, please call Chris Hamilton on 01449 711024 or email: ch@qesconnect.co.uk

What do you think are the costs of an accident at work? Not a big accident, just enough that someone has to have a few days off work? Start to add up what it costs: your time arranging someone else to do his work, the costs of overtime or temporary labour to cover his work, delays to production, so maybe extra costs for express delivery to meet the customer's deadline. Then there is the form filling: you have to report the accident to the Health & Safety Executive, and may have to spend time with a safety inspector explaining what happened. If the employee indicates he wants to claim for lost earnings or pain and suffering, you will have to tell your insurance company. They will want more forms filled in, and the solicitor wants lots of information to defend the claim. It all takes time that distracts you from running the business, so business suffers. How much is your time worth?

The costs soon add up. Wouldn't it be cheaper to prevent the accident happening in the first place? Are you confident that you have done everything that is reasonably practicable to prevent people getting hurt in your company?

QES Connect Ltd can help you to identify the hazards that can cause accidents and incidents, and to put in place a system that helps prevent accidents, and saves costs.

Contact Andy Saunders or Chris Hamilton at: QES Connect Ltd, Welhams, Forward Green, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 5HP (tel: 01449 711024) for a free no-obligation survey of how you could be avoiding the costs of accidents. Or you can email: info@qesconnect.co.uk