Health and safety play a vital role in every workplace, regardless of industry or job role. Whether you work in hospitality, healthcare or construction, health and safety is crucial for keeping both workers and the public safe, reducing expenses, ensuring legal compliance and a plethora of other reasons we will touch on in this article!
Keep reading this blog if you want to find out why health and safety is crucial for both people and businesses alike.
What Is Health and Safety?
Health and safety refers to the laws, rules, practices and procedures designed to prevent accidents, injuries and illnesses in workplaces and public environments. It focuses on identifying hazards, assessing risks and implementing controls to protect the physical and mental health of workers, customers and the public.
Why is Health and Safety So Important?
Prevents Harm
The most important reason that health and safety matters is simple: it saves lives! Health and safety prevents accidents, injuries and occupational diseases by proactively identifying hazards, assessing risks and implementing control measures to either eliminate or minimise dangers to physical and mental wellbeing.
For example in healthcare, health and safety policies like the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Policy are in place to define strict hygiene protocols such as handwashing standards and enforced PPE to minimise infection risks. Without this policy, healthcare settings would face uncontrolled spread of infections, leading to increased patient deaths, skyrocketing costs and overburdened resources – all of which make quality care impossible.
Moral Duty
Employers have an ethical duty to ensure that employees return home safe and are not harmed by their work. They also have a moral responsibility to look after the physical and mental well-being of their staff, contractors and visitors. By enforcing health and safety control measures, for example installing guardrails and edge protection to prevent falls from height, employers can be sure that they are doing their best to fulfil their moral obligation of keeping workers safe.
Productivity & Cost Savings
Health and safety also plays a crucial role in productivity and cost savings by creating a secure and safe workforce, directly reducing downtime from injuries, illness and absences. Plus, when employees feel safe, they focus better on tasks, enhancing speed, precision and overall productivity. Preventing accidents also saves money on compensation claims, repair costs and legal fees, allowing resources to be reinvested into the company.
Legal Compliance
Health and safety is also critical for legal compliance, preventing companies from facing legal penalties including prosecution and even the potential imprisonment of staff. This is because employers are legally obligated to comply with health and safety laws (such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974) and provide a safe, secure and healthy work environment. Failing to comply with these laws can ruin a company’s reputation and more importantly, ruin people’s lives.
At SafetyLiftinGear, we help companies comply with health and safety standards by offering expert advice, providing high-quality, certified equipment and offering testing and maintenance services.
To learn more about how you can create a safe and secure environment for your workers and customers, check out the Health and Safety section on our blog by clicking the button below!
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