1. How to Use YourHS.guide

Welcome to YourHS.guide!

YourHS.guide has been designed and written to provide SME organisations with all the day-to-day information they may need to manage all health and safety (H&S).

This Guide can be used as a standalone document, which can be used to put in place a bespoke health and safety system for your organisation.  It explains how to design such a system, to implement it, and to keep it up to date and effective.

Premium Membership will allow you to do the following:

• Carry out a H&S audit and create an action plan
• Create a Health and Safety Policy specifically for your organisation
• Create and implement all the associated documents you will need to support the Policy
• Set up a register of Risk Assessments
• Identify and carry out the required training for your workforce
• Ensure continuing improvement by recording and investigating accidents and incidents
• Have confidence that you are compliant with the legislation

It will give you:

1. All the forms and documents you need to manage Health and Safety effectively
2. Guidance on how to manage the many situations that may arise
3. Guidance on how to manage hazards and risks

On-line Training

You can also purchase online (e-learning) Health and Safety training from YourHS.space. 

How does it work?

YourHS.space Guide is divided into different categories.  Under each category are guidance notes, information, links to associated sections and the relevant templates you will need.

You can download a template, add your logo and make amendments as required.

Updates

YourHS.space Guide is continually updated and additional content added.  If there is a change in health and safety legislation that requires a template to be updated, we will update the document and let you know.  The last updates and additional content are detailed on the home page.

This ensures you always remain up to date with legislative changes.  You will need to sign up as a (free) member to get notifications about updates.

Membership Options

There are three levels of access:

• Non-member: this gives you access to a few guidance notes and templates. It’s FREE and you do not need to provide any information at all.
• Regular member: This gives you access to more guidance and templates. It’s FREE, but you need to provide your name and address.
• Premium membership: This gives you access to all guidance and all templates. It’s a monthly subscription and is an initial 12-month contract.

Further information regarding our membership options can be found here.

How to use the Guide

We are assuming that this Guide is going to be used by the Competent Person (CP), that is, the person appointed to oversee health and safety.  But it can be used by anyone, including business owners and directors, who need to decide whom they will appoint to the CP role. 

Because there are legal duties to be fulfilled, the uninitiated worry that they are not covering every single issue and that they will end up in court!  Consequently, they produce a huge amount of policies and procedures, hoping that somewhere in there they will have addressed all legalities.  This is not healthy or safe.  Who will read all those words?  How will you find the information you need quickly if an accident occurs?

This Guide is designed to show you how to put together a system that is bespoke to your organisation – a simple, easily understood, set of documents that will govern how you deliver health and safety to your workforce.  It must be as comprehensible to the newest member of staff as it is to the most senior manager.  It must be accessible to every worker at any time.

As you work your way through this Guide, make notes of any questions you have.  Some of these will be answered as you progress through the sections, but if, on completion, you have any questions left, please contact us, and we will answer them.  We have written this to the best of our ability but, as with your own health and safety system, it can always be improved and if we have feedback from our readers, we will refine the Guide accordingly.  And thank you in advance for the assistance.

You will also find a number of “Health and Safety Myths” sprinkled throughout this Guide.  These are included to show you that H&S is not as complicated as many people think, and also to demonstrate how many organisations use health and safety as an excuse for questionable decisions they have made.  Some are quite hard to believe, but all are true.

Review the rest of this introduction section for more details, go to the Step by Step to Health and Safety, and then you can get started.