Employer Duties

The Health, Safety and Welfare at Work, NI Order 1978 regulates health and modernises health and safety law in conjunction with the corresponding English Act of 1974. It repealed the Factories Acts and replaced them with a more contemporary risk assessment approach applicable to all places of employment.

The purpose of Health, Safety and Welfare Legislation is to protect individuals at work, ensuring the security, health, safety, and welfare of persons working, as well as third parties, against health and safety risks arising from work activities and controlling the handling and use of flammable and dangerous substances.

It is the duty of every employer to ensure, where practicable, the health, safety, and welfare of their employees at work. This includes

• providing and maintaining plant and systems of work that are, as far as reasonably practicable, safe and free from risks to health;
• establishing arrangements to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, safety and the absence of risks to health in connection with the use, handling, storage, and transport of articles and substances;
• providing necessary information, instruction, training, and supervision to secure employee health and safety at work, to the extent reasonably practicable;
• maintaining any workplace under the employer’s control in a safe condition without risks to health and providing safe means of access and egress; and
• creating and maintaining a working environment for employees that is, as far as reasonably practicable, safe and free from risks to health, with adequate facilities and arrangements for welfare at work.

Employers must also provide a written statement of their general policy concerning health and safety at work, along with the current organization and arrangements for implementing that policy. This statement and any revisions must be brought to the attention of all employees.

Regulations may permit the appointment of recognized trade unions by safety representatives from among employees, and these representatives shall represent the employees in consultations with the employer.

It is the duty of employers to consult with representatives with a view to making and maintaining arrangements that will enable employers and employees to co-operate effectively in promoting and developing measures to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of employees, and in checking the effectiveness of such measures.

It is the duty of an employer, if requested by safety representatives, to establish, in accordance with regulations, a safety committee having the functions of keeping under review measures taken to ensure the health and safety at work of employees and such other functions as may be prescribed.

It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct their undertaking in such a way as to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, that persons not in their employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.

It is the duty of an employer to conduct their undertaking in such a way as to ensure, and so far as reasonably practicable, that persons who are not in their employment but may be affected are not exposed to risks to their health or safety.

There are general obligations to assess risks of diseases, infections and allergies in the workplace.  By law there are certain infectious diseases which must be notified to the Local Authority if an outbreak is suspected.  The doctor who makes the diagnosis is required to make the report.

The Environmental Health Department of the Local Authority can assess whether there is a risk of infectious disease. The Health and Safety Executive Incident Centre must also be notified of a wide range of diseases.

It is the duty of every self-employed person to conduct their business in such a way as to ensure and, as far as reasonably practicable, that they and others (not being employers of theirs) who may be affected are not thereby exposed to risks to their health and safety.

In such cases as may be prescribed, it is the employer and self-employed person’s duty, in prescribed circumstances and a prescribed manner, to give notice to persons (not employees) who may be affected by the way they conduct their business, providing prescribed information about aspects of the way they conduct their business that might affect their health and safety.

It is a duty of persons, to the extent that they control premises, means of access or egress from them, or any plant or substance in premises, to take measures as are reasonable for the person to take to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that the same are available for use by persons using the premises, plants, and equipment without risks to safety and health.

The regulation imposes duties on persons who are not employers but use non-domestic premises made available to them as a place of work or a place where they may use plant or substances provided for their use there.

Where a person has obligations under a tenancy agreement in relation to any premises or responsibility, whether for repairs or other expressed responsibilities, they are treated as having control over the matters covered by those obligations.

It is the duty of an employee while at work to take reasonable care for the health, safety of themselves and other persons who may be affected by their acts or omissions.

An employee must cooperate with employers, and so far as it is necessary to enable the employer to comply with their duties and obligations.

No person shall intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse anything in the interest of health, safety, or welfare as mandated by safety legislation.

Employers may not charge their employees for anything provided under statutory requirements. It is a general duty of the department to do such things as it makes such arrangements as it considers appropriate for the purpose of giving effect to these obligations; the department is the Department of Employment and Learning.

An employer, self employed person or someone in control of a workplace, has legal duties to report injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences and record certain work related accidents by the quickest means possible (e.g. by telephone) to the Health and Safety Executive Incident Contact Centre.

The incidents include the following:-

• Death as a result of a work related accident.  This includes deaths as a result of physical violence
• Major injury e.g. fractures, amputations, loss of consciousness
• Dangerous occurrence. These are instances which did not cause injury but very clearly might have. This would include sudden release of materials from pressurized systems, fire, explosions, failure of a load bearing crane, collapse of a building, scaffolding.
• Where an employee or self employed person working on a premises suffers an injury that means they are unable to perform their duties for three days
• Diseases – where a doctor notifies an employer that an employee is suffering from an reportable work related disease
• Gas incident – where a person dies or suffers a major injury as a result of gas injuries (in the case of gas undertakers).

Where a doctor specifies in writing that one of the employees is suffering from a reportable workplace disease, this must be reported without delay.  Reportable diseases include certain poisonings, skin diseases e.g. occupational dermatitis, skin cancer, lung diseases, certain infections such as hepatitis, tuberculosis, anthrax and others.  Other conditions such as occupational cancer, certain muscular skeletal disorders, decompression illness.

There is a legal obligation to keep records of injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences. They must be kept in the usual place of business and kept for at least three years.  The information kept must include date and time of accident, who was affected, where it happened, nature of injury, a brief description of circumstances and events; date and method by which the incident was reported.

If an incident is reported by telephone or on line the HSE will send a copy of the record held.  This will have to be amended if it is not correct.  Records must be kept in the form of a file on computer and written log or using the statutory accident report book.

It is necessary to provide an accident book in which employees can enter details of accidents leading to injury if a factory or other premises in which more than 10 people are employed is involved. The accident or report book should comply with the Data Protection Act.