What are the Roles and Responsibilities of a Health and Safety Manager?

Ellie Collier

March 26, 2018

2 min read

Workplace health and safety is incredibly important. As a health and safety manager, it’s your responsibility to meet the correct health and safety procedures. All industries and companies have specific health and safety risks and controls that you must be aware of.

This article outlines your general health and safety manager responsibilities and the importance of health and safety at work.

Responsibilities of a Health and Safety Manager

Your main role as a health and safety manager is to prevent accidents, injuries, and work-related illness. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, all businesses with 5 or more employees must have a written health and safety policy in place. You should implement this policy to prevent the aforementioned risks.

As a health and safety manager you have a range of responsibilities. You should:

Formulate policies and procedures. You should implement health and safety procedures and ensure that these comply with the law.
Conduct risk assessments. These highlight the areas of potential risk that you must reduce. If you would like to know how to conduct a thorough risk assessment, High Speed Training offer a course which you can find here.
Train all employees in your health and safety procedures. You should also give proper training on the particular risks in their area of work, and how they can prevent these.
Conduct frequent safety inspections and checks. This is especially important for things like electrical equipment and equipment used for working at height.
Understand the importance of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). You should make all employees aware of the benefits of PPE and ensure that they receive adequate PPE. You should also frequently check PPE for wear and tear. Equipment must be effective in the event of an accident.
Develop a correct procedure for reporting accidents. You must make all employees aware of the correct reporting procedure and ensure that they know how to properly report accidents.
Respond to any safety complaints and concerns raised by employees. You should investigate their claims and put plans in place to remove the danger.
Take responsibility for first aid procedures, including employee first aid training. Online first-aid courses can be valuable for refreshing or supplementing classroom training.
Manage emergency procedures, such as fire alarm drills.
Lead by example. You must show employees that you take your health and safety manager responsibilities seriously. You should also try to instil a positive health and safety culture.

We hope that this article has usefully explained the roles and responsibilities of a health and safety manager. You can find below additional resources relating to health and safety.