How and when to report health and safety risks

• If staff come across a health and safety risk, where possible and without putting themselves at risk, staff should try to remove or reduce the risk and move clients/staff to a safe area.
• Staff need to inform their line manager immediately.
• Staff need to ensure that no one else is harmed. For example, if the health and safety risk is broken equipment, the equipment should be clearly labelled as broken.
• Staff need to report any changes in clients wellbeing (behaviour, health and condition) to their line manager so that it can be risk assessed

The most important part of the hazard reporting is that you act quickly and tell a manager or supervisor who can take action to prevent an accident or harm. It is a legal requirement that you do this. Once a hazard is identified, a risk assessment needs to be carried out. You should be familiar with your agreed ways of working for reporting health and safety risks.

Identifying and assessing risks and putting in place measures to address them is an essential step to protect workers, service users, employers and others from harm. If risks are properly identified then measures can be put in place to minimise them. The law requires that employers and employees do everything “reasonable practicable” to protect a person or people from harm. This means that if a hazard poses an immediate danger staff must act to minimise it.

Legal action can be taken by clients and employees if they feel that they have been harmed because health and safety measures were not put in place, flouted or ignored or when concerns were not taken seriously.

Examples of How to Report Health and Safety Risks

Use to answer question 13.2b of the Care Certificate