Residential Care Homes are places of work and are therefore potentially subject to the whole range of Health and Safety legislation just as are offices, schools, factories or nuclear installations.
However, as Lord Young pointed out in his recent report on Health and Safety, it is not appropriate to blindly apply legislation in exactly the same way for every workplace. Each has its own peculiarities when it comes to health and safety risks and it is therefore important that we concentrate on those aspects of legislation that are most pertinent. Care Homes provide an interesting case study to illustrate this point.
Obviously, when assessing the situation for Care Homes, the primary Health and Safety legislation must be applied including, for example:
- The Health and Safety at Work etc Act
- The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations
- All the specific regulations covering such aspects as Fire, Electrical Installations and Equipment, First Aid, Manual Handling, Violence at Work, Work Related Stress, Asbestos and Lone Working.
However, the factors that distinguish Residential Care Homes from most other places of work include:
- Care Homes have to provide social assistance 24 hours a day and for every day of the year
- They deliver services to some of the most vulnerable people in society, whether they be children, the elderly or other special categories of people.
- As well as being workplaces they are also “home” for many people.
Because of these factors, it is important to give special attention to particular items of Health and Safety legislation, some of which may receive scant attention elsewhere, for example:
- Lifting Operations and Manual Handling are often a prominent aspect of work in Care Homes
- Control of Infection is a vital activity which typically involves specialist training, good hygiene practices, control of hazardous substances, safe handling of sharps, disposal of clinical waste and much more.
- Because it is a home environment, kitchen safety is an important consideration that also covers a wide range of aspects from slips and trips to high temperature surfaces and substances.
- Similarly, being a home environment, outdoor Health and Safety takes on a special importance when considering, surfaces, steps, lighting, chemicals, work equipment and evacuation routes, for example.
Wherever we work, we can almost certainly indentify special factors that make our workplace different from most others.
Identifying the distinguishing features up front, helps us to assess the risks that are most important and which need extra care and attention.
If you are unsure about how to go about creating relevant risk assessments, consider one of our risk assessment training courses, such as:
