New Tougher Sentences Focus Minds on Health & Safety Governance

 From February 2016, new sentencing guidelines come in to force which could mean fines of around £10 million for the most serious breaches of health and safety law.

Following consultation, the Sentencing Council has reviewed the sanctions available for health and safety offences including those related to food safety and corporate manslaughter.

However, whatever the size of company, regular HSE (Health and Safety Executive) bulletins show many successful prosecutions under health and safety law.

Start with a Risk Assessment

Take the first step in managing the health and safety risks of your organisation by documenting a risk assessment that identifies potential hazards, who could be affected and what controls are (and could be) in place to mitigate them.

You can use this to identify the actions you need to take to reduce the risks further.

Corporate Governance via a Recognised Management System

Showing good governance of health and safety is important and many of our clients use the recognised OHSAS 18001 standard for occupational health and safety to implement a management system that continues a cycle of continual improvement.

This also has the added benefit of certification from a UKAS accredited body, although this is not mandatory.

Our consultants can help you to implement and operate a health & safety Management system to the requirements of OHSAS 18001.

Find out more: https://www.assentriskmanagement.co.uk/ohsas18001/

Moving OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001

Many are surprised that OHSAS 18001 is not an international standard yet – however it is widely accepted as such.

However, it is likely in the near future OHSAS 18001 will be updated and superseded by an international standard ISO 45001 – which will take the Annex SL format, making it much easier to integrate with other ISO standards.

Even so, it’s still valuable to implement OHSAS 18001 in order to manage occupational health and safety risks, and even achieve certification – as there will be a transition period to any new standard that arrives.

Find out more about ISO 45001: https://www.assentriskmanagement.co.uk/isorevisions/

More information on the sentencing guidelines: http://www.riskbriefing.co.uk/tough-new … uary-2016/

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Robert Clements
Robert Clements
Articles: 296