Health & Safety for the Self-Employed
The HSE defines Self-Employed as;
"For health and safety law purposes, 'self-employed' means that you do not work under a contract of employment and work only for yourself."
So, you may think there is no need to consider health and safety at work because you are only responsible for looking after yourself - however this is not true.
Reasons for self-employed persons to practice good health and safety;
You are the only one undertaking the work, so it is important to stay healthy and safe.
You have a duty of care to avoid doing something that could bring harm to others.
You may one day grow your business and employ others.
Reputation is important to any business.
You may not have employees to manage and protect, but remember;
You have a duty of care to yourself and others to ensure you remain safe and your health is not affected whilst at work.
You will also need to ensure your activities do no bring the risk of harm to others like your customers, clients or subcontractors.
It is important to consider what hazards are associated with your typical daily activities and to have precautions in place. As you would with choosing to cycle to work;
You are cycling alone and having little affect on others. You choose to comply with the highway code, wear a helmet and perhaps protective clothing, you make yourself clearly visible with lights, reflective clothing and bicycle features, you consider the weather conditions, you use the correct speeds and signals to manoeuvre safely - these are all examples of how you consider safety and health and how you implement measures to best protect yourself.
You plan your journey, ride in a safe manner maintaining safe and suitable road positioning, signal to others, use a bell as audible warning on approach - these are reasonable measures you take to protect others who could be affected by your actions.
Health & Safety at work is the same - plan, prepare, communicate and learn.
If you are self-employed and employing others, H&S Law will apply to you. When you employ someone you have a responsibility to protect them from workplace dangers. If you have fewer than 5 employees you are not legally required to write down your risk assessment or health and safety policy and procedures. Some find it useful and it certainly helps to be prepared if you envisage growth in your business to bring you over the threshold of 5 or more employees.
The HSE website has a wide range of information and tools to help all organisations across the industries, but if you would like a person to talk to and make sense of health and safety, Safety For are here to help.