Health – the forgotten part of Health and Safety

When businesses think about Health and

Safety, often the Health part gets conveniently ignored, unless you are in an industry where there are potential ongoing health risks due to say chemical exposure (such as Automotive workshops) or – continuous process risk. The Covid-19 Coronavirus epidemic might have help focus minds on the fact that companies equally have duties in terms of staff health and need to follow the same processes and procedures as they would for safety/risk issues.

In particular, apart from illness, employers have a duty of care around psychological harm, in particular from bullying, harassment and general workplace stress – our Business Torque column discussed this in the February issue. This becomes especially problematic if instances have been reported and no suitable action has been taken to address the issue.

In automotive workshops there are also health issues relating to solvents, petrochemicals (which can often cause skin reactions and dermatitis), asbestos in older vehicles and exhaust fumes which can cause health issues.

So what do you do for health issues? Do you have any EAP (Employee Assistance Programme), or pay as you go counselling to deal with staff subjected to bullying or harassment – and how do you monitor staff health vs potential issues?

So next time you review your health and safety plans, don’t forget about the health side.