This section contains advice for businesses and employees about health and safety, from the council's Commercial Services section. It includes publications and links to interactive online tools.
The Better Business website from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) can help small businesses save money by improving health and safety.
Accidents and ill health caused by work cost small firms time and money.
Reduce Accidents - Save Time and Money
A good health and safety regime for your business ensures your hard earned profits stay in the bank and are not spent on accident or illness related problems. This means more money for you.
Good health and safety in the workplace is good business. Find out how on the HSE Better Business website:
- Good for business - reducing the costs of accidents and ill health
- Easy and effective health and safety precautions
- Get started - simple steps
- Tools to get you started - test your knowledge online quiz
More detailed information for small businesses is available in the Introduction to Health and Safety booklet. There are separate Better Business webpages for large businesses with over 250 employees.
Better Business is an external website and Torfaen County Borough Council is not responsible for its content.
If you are having construction or refurbishment work done, you may need to notify the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and you may have other duties as well - find out more at www.hse.gov.uk
Infection control in early year settings
There were outbreaks of infectious diseases in nurseries in both Anglesey and Gwynedd in 2011. These outbreaks highlighted a number of issues to all those involved. As such, local authority officers have been working with the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales (opens in new tab) (CSSIW) and with the Health Protection Team at Public Health Wales (opens in new tab) to provide guidance to child care providers.
As a result of this joint working, the “Infection Control Audit Tool – Early Years Settings” has been developed. The Audit Tool will allow you to undertake a review of your premises, policies and procedures in relation to infection control, to help ensure you are meeting current best practice standards. As well as the Audit Tool being used by yourselves as part of your annual review, you may find it being utilised by officers from the local authority and CSSIW as part of their inspection regime.
The introduction to the Audit Tool provides advice as to documents where guidance can be sought and the documents below include a copy of the Audit Tool, as well as a variety of documents that you may find helpful in relation to infection control at your premises.
- Infection Control Audit Tool (Early Years Settings) (opens in new tab)
- Commercial Risk Assessment Guidance (opens in new tab)
- Commercial Risk Assessment Summary Form (opens in new tab)
- Risk Assessment Template for Nurseries (opens in new tab)
- Health & Safety Self Assessment Questionnaire (Nurseries) (opens in new tab)
- Health & Safety Action Plan proforma (opens in new tab)
- Risk Assessment Matrix (opens in new tab)
- Infection Prevention and Control for Childcare Settings (opens in new tab)
- Safer Workplace, Better Business booklet (opens in new tab)
Business Link has an online tool to help small businesses with health and safety law.
Good health and safety practice can have a positive impact on your insurance claims and also improves your reputation with customers, the local community and your employees.
Online Self Assessment Tool
This self-assessment tool is designed to give a measure of how well you are handling health and safety issues and will:
- help you to understand how well you identify and manage health and safety hazards
- provide you with targeted guidance to help you improve your management of health and safety
- enable you to compare your performance anonymously with other businesses across sectors and sizes
It is designed to help premiums for Employer's Liability Compulsory Insurance reflect businesses health and safety record.
The indicator should take about 15 minutes to complete.
It works by asking a series of questions on the top 10 key hazards that most small to medium-sized businesses encounter and how often these accidents or incidents occur. A score out of 10 is calculated for each - with 10 the best possible result and 0 the poorest.
However, it is not a comprehensive audit tool. You have a legal duty to consider the whole range of risks that your workers may face while at work. It does not deal with special hazards faced by particular industries.
The performance indicator was developed by Business Link, with the Health and Safety Executive, the Association of British Insurers and the British Insurance Brokers Association.
It is on an external website and Torfaen County Borough Council is not responsible for its content.
The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has produced a risk management toolkit specifically designed for small firms.
The key to successful business is the effective management of risk.
Dealing with Business Risks
The IOSH toolkit will get you started planning to effectively deal with health and safety and a wide range of other business risks.
The toolkit can help small businesses to tackle business risk management in a user-friendly way, using tools such as work cards, checklists, information cards and workbooks.
All the materials are available to download free in PDF format from the IOSH website.
The Risk Management Toolkit is on an external website and Torfaen County Borough Council is not responsible for its content.
Safestartup.org has an online tool to help small businesses with health and safety law.
It is produced by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) and supported by the Health and Safety Executive and the Small Business Service.
Take the Safe Start Up interactive tour on the IOSH website - a step by step guide to help you identify what you need to do for health and safety, based on your type of business and how many people you employ.
Safe Start Up can help small businesses and new companies starting up to comply with health, safety and environmental regulations.
The online tour covers:
- registering your business
- producing a health and safety policy
- insurance
- reporting accidents
- welfare facilities and fire safety
- risk assessment
- specific guidance for different business types
To view the full interactive tour you will need a minimum of Adobe Flash Player version 7. An alternative accessible version with no Flash is also available.
Safe Start Up is an external website and Torfaen County Borough Council is not responsible for its content.
The Safer Workplace, Better Business pack has been produced by the officers of the Devon Health & Safety Sub Group, in Partnership with the Health and Safety Executive.
Businesses have been consulted throughout the development of the Safer Workplace, Better Business pack (opens in new tab) which is available to download. The pack has been designed for small, medium sized businesses, such as restaurants, cafes, takeaways, retailers, small hotels, public houses, care homes and offices. Once completed it will allow businesses to identify key hazards in their workplace, introduce suitable control measures and have a documented system available for inspection by enforcement officers.
It is split into the following five sections which business owners and/or managers should work through and complete:
- Policies and procedures
- Protection
- Good practices
- Records
- Extra care
Once all the sections are completed the pack should be brought to the attention of staff. The health and safety procedures/safe methods should be reviewed on a regular basis and updated where necessary, for example, following an accident, changes in work practices or when new equipment is introduced.
Controlling danger at work is no different from any other task - you need to recognise problems, know enough about them, decide what to do and act on the solutions.
Getting Started
Listed below is some help and advice on actions small businesses must take to meet health and safety law.
There are 10 key things which you must do:
- Decide what could cause harm to people and how to take precautions. This is your risk assessment. See the booklet Introduction to Health and Safety for a ready-made self-assessment form.
- Decide how you are going to manage health and safety in your business. If you have 5 or more employees you need to write this down. This is your health and safety policy. See the booklet as above for a self-assessment form.
- If you employ anyone you need Employers Liability Compulsory Insurance and you must display the certificate in your workplace.
- You must provide free health and safety training for your workers so they know what hazards and risks they may face and how to deal with them.
- You must have competent advice to help you meet your health and safety duties. This can be provided by workers from your business, external advisers or a combination of these.
- You need to provide toilets, washing facilities and drinking water for all your employees, including those with disabilities. These are basic health, safety and welfare needs.
- You must consult employees on health and safety matters.
- If you have employees you must display the health and safety law poster or provide workers with a leaflet with the same information.
- If you are an employer, self-employed or in control of work premises, by law you must report some work-related accidents, diseases and dangerous occurrences.
Health and safety does not have to be expensive, time consuming or complicated. Download our free Small Business Advice Pack (opens in new tab) for further information.
The Sunbeds (Regulation) Act 2010 came into force on 8 April 2011 to prevent under 18s from using tanning salons. You can download the Department of Health guidance on meeting your legal requirements (opens in new tab) here.
Operators will have to make sure their salons are adequately supervised to prevent children from using their sun beds. There have been a number of cases throughout the country where children have used unmanned coin operating salons and suffered severe burns. Studies have shown that using sunbeds for the first time before the age of 35 increases the risk of developing melanoma by 75 per cent.
Salons should provide suitable eye protection and ensure (as far as is reasonably possible) that this protection is worn. Salons should also display clear and accurate health information and ensure that this is explained to users.
Businesses such as leisure centres and gyms will also need to make sure that sun beds are positioned in a restricted zone, to prevent access by under 18s. For example, if a sun bed is accessible through a changing room then the room would have to be separated so access to the sun bed is restricted.
To help you, we have produced a safe method sheet (opens in new tab) as part of a free safety toolkit for businesses to complete. This safe method sheet offers best practice guidance but importantly will help you comply with the legislation.
Training
You must train your staff on all aspects of running the salon, including how to check the age of your customers and the type of ID you accept. You should keep records of any training that you have provided for your staff and repeat training regularly so standards are kept high. Remember new staff need full training and supervision.
Presentations for the owners and managers of Sunbed Salons to help them with their legal requirements are available below for you to use as part of your training. If you need any further help please contact us.
Training resources
- Health effects of using sunbeds (opens in new tab)
- Preventing underage sales in the sunbed business (opens in new tab)
- Health, safety and cleanliness of sunbeds (opens in new tab)
- Safety checklist for sunbed operators (opens in new tab)
- UV tanning equipment poster (opens in new tab)
- Sunbed under 21 poster (opens in new tab)
After exploring the advice services and online tools in this section, where else can you get help?
You can get more advice and download or order a wide range of free publications from many organisations’ websites, including:
- The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). It has a useful advice pack for smaller firms - Managing Health and Safety
- The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Infoline - telephone 0845 345 0055 for fast access to a wealth of health and safety information, expert advice and confidential guidance
If you are an employer or employee in Torfaen, you can also contact the council's health and safety officers for advice and inspections.
We have limited stocks of printed publications in our offices, including HSE leaflets, for businesses in Torfaen who do not have internet access.
Outside Torfaen, you should contact your local district or city council. Use the Gov.uk A-Z of Local Councils in the UK.