Health & Safety Package

Select from the list below to find out details on the following:

• Health & Safety and you...the Goods Vehicle Operator
• Putting together a Health & Safety Policy
• Investing in Health & Safety
• Safety, Health and the Environment (SHE)
• The company SHE Adviser
• Risk Assessments
• Company Health & Safety Policy and accompanying written statement
• Health & Safety Training
• Health & Safety Auditing
• The Health & Safety Package

Health & Safety and you.............the Goods Vehicle Operator
Guidance on Health and Safety is now becoming more of an issue than ever before to those companies that employ staff; have premises that are either owned or leased; run commercial vehicles and deliver products to other places of work and at the same time want to provide an efficient, quality service to their customers, while also ensuring that employee’s are knowledgeable, competent, safe and happy in their work.

This requirement for guidance is due to both the vast amount of legislation that has to be complied with, coupled with the lack of free and available time that owners and managers of small to medium sized businesses can give to understanding and ensuring compliance with these complex rules. Unfortunately, Health and Safety is easy to overlook when nothing is going wrong, but failure to comply can bring down even the most successful company.

Putting together a Health & Safety Policy
There is a legal requirement, under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, that every operator employing 5 or more people must have in place a comprehensive Health and Safety Policy and a Written H&S Statement. Remember that this doesn’t just mean drivers, it’s means everyone paid a wage by you and specified on your books.

A Health and Safety Policy should outline how a company manages Health and Safety within the workplace. The Policy should always include the steps, arrangements and systems the company has in place to ensure compliance with Health and Safety legislation.

As well as putting together a policy it is imperative that the organisation then invests in adequate and audited training for staff, as well as supplying employees with easy to understand handbooks and regular information updates. Refresher training is also required.

Investing in Health & Safety
Unless your company is large and employs a vast number of employees fulfilling different roles it is unlikely that it will be cost-effective for you to invest in employing a full time Health and Safety Adviser. In the East Midlands the average annual salary for a full time Health and Safety Advisor covering a small to medium sized enterprise (SME) is stated to be £27,000.

Truck UK has made a conscious decision to specialise in providing guidance and services to SME’s based within the East Midlands and East Anglia through a series of cost effective, yet comprehensive, service packages. The series includes one that is health and safety specific, aimed at fulfilling the individual and personalised HSE needs of each company that we serve.

The Truck UK  Health & Safety Package obviously focuses on safety first, together with the health and wellbeing of both your employee’s and those that come into contact with your operation. Environmental considerations are also factored in whenever we are invited to work with a company or business, as it is now becoming normal practice for service providers to be able to demonstrate their commitment to both the environment and their local community in everything they do. Remember, that your Operator Licence is not only dependent on compliance with drivers’ hours and good maintenance of your fleet, but also on environmental considerations with regard to the operating centre or centres.

The next few paragraphs give a brief outline of what  Truck UK can offer your company, with regards to compliance with your specific Health & Safety obligations, together with additional services that are included within the package aimed at ensuring that your efforts to improve the lives of both your own employee’s and others that your business comes into contact with are also used to improve the image of your company and therefore increase the chances of customers making you the first choice whenever they require a contractor.

Safety, Health and the Environment (SHE)

Every company, irrespective of their size, should invest time and effort in health, safety and the environment. In fact an increasing number of goods vehicle operators are finding that their customers insist on seeing evidence of what is being done to comply with health and safety requirements before contracts are agreed upon.

The company SHE Adviser
Therefore,  Truck UK  can provide you with a competent SHE adviser, as part of the Truck UK Health & Safety Package. This adviser can act and liaise with your customers on your behalf when health and safety issues are raised. This can either be as an when required, or as part of a longer term commitment that includes initial contact, the provision of regular updates on your companies health and safety investment, as well as filling the role as the recorder and investigator of near miss occurrences plus incident and accident management.

Whatever you decide, it is likely that your insurance provider will look favourably upon any commitment you make regarding the employment of a SHE adviser, as this can only reduce the risk factor rating of your company.

Risk Assessments

Regulation 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 imposes a duty on all employers to carry out suitable and sufficient Risk Assessments for every work task to be undertaken by all employees at all locations.

Once a Risk Assessment has been physically and visually undertaken the result should be an understanding of the risks involved in whatever service or delivery is to be carried out and the customer and your employee’s should be provided with easy to understand working documents that ensure both legal compliance and the safety and protection of your employees and anyone they come into contact with while completing the task that the risk assessment relates to.

With HSE, local authorities, insurance companies and customers all requiring evidence of sufficient risk assessments being carried out, it is essential that your operation complies with this requirement.  Truck UK can either give you general advice on how to carry out adequate risk assessments, or carry out risk assessments on your behalf. The choice is yours.

Company Health & Safety Policy and accompanying written statement
You will already be aware that there is a legal requirement, under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, that every operator employing 5 or more people must have in place a comprehensive Health and Safety Policy and a Written H&S Statement.  Truck UK is competent to fulfil this requirement, on behalf of your company.

To ensure that you adequately comply with this legal requirement and before a policy can be put together a representative of Truck UK would need access to your premises and your company vehicles, as well as permission to inspect your existing health, safety, employment and training records. We guarantee confidentiality at all times and we adhere to the requirements of the Data Protection regulations throughout our investigation process.

Once all the relevant information has been collated a report will be provided to you indicating our findings and recommended actions will be put forward, followed by the production of a suitable Health & Safety Policy and written H&S Statement.

At this point you will have complied with the legal requirement to have in place a comprehensive H&S Policy and Written Statement. However, the obligation is an ongoing one.

Any company Health and Safety Policy produced by Truck UK will outline how the company has agreed to manage Health and Safety within the workplace. The Policy will include the steps, arrangements and systems the company has in place to ensure compliance with Health and Safety legislation.

Therefore, you have now fulfilled your obligation to put together a policy, so it is imperative that you continue to invest in adequate, audited and ongoing training for staff to ensure compliance continues.

At this point you can either decide that you are prepared to personally commit yourself or a member of your staff to regular and ongoing H&S auditing and staff training, or you can enter into a contract with Truck UK to ensure that your legal requirement is never compromised. The choice is yours.

Health & Safety Training
Every person that you employ must be given adequate information and training with regard to health and safety. This must begin with induction training and must continue throughout their period of employment. The obligation you have as an employer is to provide the training and to record and audit details of the training that has been provided, so that inspections can be carried out should the need arise.

Truck UK can provide your company with physical on-site training that covers all the obligations that you, as an employer, have. We can also provide each member of staff with an employee handbook tailored to their own role within the company and the health and safety issues that relate to them and the jobs they carry out. This handbook is loose leaf and can be regularly updated as legislation and job requirements are changed and/or amended.

There are two options available to you, either the provision by Truck UK  of an induction training session and a standard handbook for each of your employees, or induction training and an individual employee handbook, followed by regular and ongoing training and handbook updates. The second option would need to be contractually agreed and would be dependent on the type of work your company carries out and the level of refresher training you feel is needed.

Health & Safety Auditing
Health and Safety Audits must be carried out wherever Health and Safety has been implemented. Audits of safe systems of work help in measuring standards that have been set for existing Health and Safety procedures.

It is recognised as best practice to have an ongoing evaluation process, whether this be weekly, monthly, bi-annually or annually. The time-scale largely depends on the nature of work your company carries out and the requirements of your customers to ensure confirmation of compliance by your employees when visiting company locations / sites.

Truck UK can provide you with basic advice and draft documentation to enable you to carry out audits in-house, or you can commit to a regular auditing service that incorporates agreed and regular site visits within an agreed timescale, regular HSE alerts and updates, amendments to your HSE policy as and when required and the assignment of a specific SHE adviser to your account. The choice is yours.

The Health & Safety Package
We believe that this package is of a good quality and is realistically priced. If you believe that it could suit your needs please get in touch for further information and a quote, with absolutely no obligation to proceed further. We guarantee not to hound or harass anyone that shows an interest, but then declines to continue and we will never pass on your details to any third parties.

Example Fees: