1.2 Explain The Importance Of Responsible For Health And Safety

Employers have many health and safety responsibilities such as; Employer’s should decide what could cause you harm in your job and the things that they can do to stop that from happening. This could be by fixing a chair that you sit in regularly that you have reported to not be adequate for supporting your back, it is their responsibility to listen and act on your complaint for your safety. It is also their responsibility to ensure that you do not pay any money for the chair to be fixed or to buy a new one. They must provide you with any equipment/protective clothing free of charge. This ensures that even the staff on the lowest of wages do not have to choose between personal necessities or their safety. Employers should always explain who is responsible for the health and safety in your workplace and who you should report any incidents to clearly, this person will be responsible for keeping up to date records on any incidents and reporting any major incidents, injuries or diseases to the incident contact centre. Employers must insure that they consult with staff and this person regularly to address any potential hazards in the workplace and come to a solution that will prevent incidents from happening.

Potential hazards could be prevented by giving all staff the relevant health and safety training for their job role. It is an employer’s responsibility to provide this to you free of charge. If you lift heavy loads in your job they must provide you with training on how to lift objects correctly to prevent any future harm to your body or if you drive a forklift you must have a licence to do so, this ensures you to attend in-depth training that will focus on the safety for yourself and for others. If an incident does occur it is important that your workplace has first aider on site and that your employers have provided adequate first aid facilities, this ensure that a minor incident can be dealt with efficiently and that if a major incident occurs that the person can be looked after until an ambulance arrives. In the event that you are hurt or ill at work they must have insurance that covers the above and insure that insurance certificate is stored where you can easily read it. They must provide toilets, washing facilities and drinking water and they must provide employees (such as agency workers) to ensure that minimal stress is put onto their employees and that employees are not put in situations that they are not trained for.
1.2 An employee also holds responsibility for health and safety in their workplace; although your employer must provide health and safety training for you it is void if you choose not to learn or follow the training given, you must insure that you follow your workplaces procedure to the best of your ability as there are procedure in place for good reason, you must take reasonable care of yours and others health and safety by doing so and by communicating any potential hazard you see to the health and safety officer in your workplace as soon as possible.

If you see a spillage on the floor it is your responsibility to not ignore it, you should follow the procedure in place; this could be by cleaning the spillage and covering the still wet area with a wet floor

sign.