As many start to take their first tentative steps back to the workplace, the news that the HSE has not extended the deferral period for health surveillance, means employers can once again find themselves facing hefty fines if they fail to provide employees with the necessary health surveillance. For businesses which have not undertaken a check within the last 12 months, it is now a priority. As thousands of employers working in hazardous industries play catch up, while trying to ensure a Covid-secure workplace, Phil Jackson-Taft, Occupational Health Nurse at OH One, looks at employers’ responsibilities and the challenges of ensuring HSE compliance in a post-pandemic world.
Health surveillance is a legal requirement if you have employees who are exposed to specific workplace hazards, such as noise, vibration, radiation, asbestos, lead solvents, fumes, dust, and other substances hazardous to health.
According to Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines, employers must put in place ‘systematic, regular and appropriate procedures to detect early signs of work-related ill health among employees exposed to certain health risks, and act on the results’. For example, if employees are exposed to high levels of noise, then your employee needs to have regular audiometry tests.
As lockdown lifts after a hugely testing year, there is a desire from most companies – and people – to return to business-as-usual. The temptation is to ensure that workplaces are ‘Covid secure’ to get teams working and productive as soon as possible, but in the rush to resume normal operations and to tick the Covid secure box, the inevitable backlog in health surveillance should not be overlooked.
With its grace period at an end, the HSE is also resuming ‘business-as-usual’. With the threat of heavy fines also returning, it makes sense to seek the advice of a fully trained and medically qualified team to deliver assessments onsite at your company, at times to suit you and your employees, to ensure your workforce is fit to work, and that you, as an employer, are fully compliant.