Health and Safety Strategy

Transcription

1 Health and Safety Strategy Published: December 2016 Find us online at cornwallft

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3 1. Introduction Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CFT) has very clear responsibilities for staff, patients, visitors and others as outlined in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations The Trust needs healthy and wellmotivated staff if it is to deliver high quality services. Effectively managing health, safety and well-being is key to this and we can improve service delivery through better occupational health and safety. Occupational health and safety is concerned with how work and the work environment can affect the health of staff, and how health of an individual can affect their ability to enhance their experience at work. Staff and services are the Trust s most important assets and this strategy is designed to promote the Trust s vision of providing a healthy, safe and vibrant working community, which will help to support high quality patient care. The key challenge is how to embed this strategy into the organisation. The strategy s aims are to develop a positive health and safety culture with coherent policies and procedures that are compliant with all relevant health and safety regulations. Culture: To engender an effective health and safety culture through the continuous improvement of attitudes, perceptions, competences and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to the style and proficiency of the Trust s health and safety management systems. Coherence: To embed and ensure policies, procedures, guidance and advice are understood and easily accessible to all staff, patients, visitors and contractors. Compliance: To ensure that the Trust adheres to all relevant health and safety legislative requirements and that staff follow internal policies. This strategy looks to go beyond the traditional health and safety role of preventing harm and will commit the Trust to continually improve the health, safety and well-being of all staff and patients. 2. Background The Trust operates from multiple sites, each with different health and safety risks in relation to estates issues and operational issues. The main responsibilities for ensuring the health and safety of staff, patients and visitors, rests with the Chief Executive and senior management teams who delegate the day to day management responsibilities to line managers. In addition any Landlords have responsibility for building related health and safety issues. 1

4 The Trust has to manage a number of health and safety risks of a varying nature including (but not limited to): violence to staff and other patients from members of the public and patients in care, this is significantly more complex when there is an on-going requirement to treat their health need fire safety in hospitals specifically where there are inpatients facilities and patients are immobile or have capacity issues manual handling and moving of patients and heavy objects without risk either staff or patients sharps injuries from needles and instruments contaminated with blood and other biological fluid patient and staff slip, trips and falls in particular where there are environmental aspects which add to the risk of elderly and frail patients caring for patients in the community, this may include visits to remote locations or environments with poor standards of health, safety and welfare high risk site based activities, working with equipment and the handling of dangerous substances staff frequently having to drive and travel extensively on Trust business night working and lone working. The Trust in general terms also needs occupational health and safety input in relation to: any health risk which can be associated with clinical work, lone working, driving, use of equipment, working at height statutory compliance safety issues which may include fire safety, water safety and asbestos, electrical testing, gas safety, and radon exposure safety issues including accident reporting and investigations, first aid, risk assessments, dermatitis, policy development and review. To help to control the above the Trust will continue to give adequate training on:- general health and safety, manual handling, fire safety, workstation safety and Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) and this training will be supplemented with competent advice from the Health and Safety Team to include suitable and sufficient risk assessments. The Trust also works closely with a number of external agencies with the aim of improving health and safety within all areas of the organisation. The benefits of having a strategy in place are: a consistent approach to the management of health and safety throughout the Trust compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act etc, 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 improved performance with regard to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulations and expected outcomes on health and safety issues the continuing commitment to the safety of patients, staff, visitors and others. 2

5 3. Responsibilities Staff at all levels within the Trust are responsible for their own health and safety and for the safety of others who may be affected by their actions. This includes both acts and omissions. Staff must ensure adherence to relevant policies and procedures. Responsibility for ensuring that the Trust complies with current health and safety legislation rests with a number of enforcement agencies including the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Fire and Rescue Service, CQC and the Local Authority, all of whom the Trust work closely with. 4. Development of the strategy Developing the key themes of this strategy The Trust is aware of the need to manage risk as it implements its overall strategic plans. Health and safety needs are to be managed with the same degree of expertise and to the same standards as other core business activities if the organisation is to control risks and prevent harm to staff. Health and safety support is embedded into the organisation for the following specific reasons:- 4.1 Financial Reasons Health and safety support can assist in controlling and reducing sickness and ill health absence and its associated costs, which in turn will free up resources for delivering the aims and objectives of the Trust. Taking positive steps to improve employee health and wellbeing will enhance the working community wellbeing and impact on a number of key human resource objectives such as performance management, recruitment and retention of staff and reducing potential litigation claims. 4.2 Legal reasons The Trust is required by law, as an absolute minimum to comply with all current health and safety legislation and identify and control the significant risk factors that contribute to ill health at work. 4.3 Moral reasons The Trust is aiming to improve its health and safety performance, so that accidents and ill health are reduced and work forms part of a satisfying life to the benefit of both the individual and the Trust. The Trust is committed to the principles of effective health and safety management and recognises that there are benefits to the Trust in adopting a pro-active good practice approach. 3

6 5. Strategy objectives 5.1 To continue to engender a positive health and safety culture The safety culture of an organisation is the product of individual and group values, attitudes and perceptions, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to and style and proficiency of an organisation s health and safety management. The activities/key performance indicators necessary to promote a positive health and safety culture are: ensuring effective health and safety management is a collective responsibility in which all employees must play their part increase local ownership within each Trust site of their own health and safety performance securing appropriate co-operation and communication between different groups of employees ensuring there are regular reviews of health and safety to improve performance. 5.2 To have coherent health and safety policies and procedures To ensure all Trust health and safety policies, procedures and guidance are easy to read and understand and are easily accessible to all staff, and where appropriate, patients, visitors and contractors. The activities/key performance indicators for this goal include: the input of competent staff to ensure all policies and procedures are up to date and reflect current best practice to ensure appropriate consultation groups for comments on revised or newly developed policies use of appropriate risk management/ risk assessment techniques; ensuring appropriate communication channels exist for the dissemination of information. 5.3 Compliance with all appropriate health and safety standards Making sure the Trust adheres to UK and EU health and safety legislative requirements and that staff follow internal policies and procedures. The activities/key performance indicators for this goal include: ensuring the Trust implements any new or existing legislation and acts promptly to changes in current regulations; respond quickly to reports or reviews by staff, safety representatives or other external agencies; implement regular auditing, monitoring and reviewing all health and safety systems within the Trust. 4

7 6. Making it happen In order to achieve continual improvement in health and safety performance, the strategy framework follows the recommended structure in the Health and Safety Executive guidance Successful Health and Safety Management Health and Safety Guidance 65 (HSG65) HSG65 sets down the framework for embedding into the organisation good health and safety management. If followed, this will ensure that health and safety arrangements are complied with and staff do not put the Trust at risk of enforcement actions. Non-compliance could lead to actions taken against the Trust under the Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 and the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, 1974 and the associated regulations. The updated HSG65 guidance has moved towards the approach of Plan, Do, Check, Act. This achieves a balance between the systems and behavioural aspects of management. It also treats health and safety management as an integral part of good management generally, rather than as a stand-alone system. To deliver real improvements in the management of health and safety within the Trust, this strategy has been written in a manner that seeks to reflect this updated guidance: The Trust will do this by: having a Health and Safety Strategy in place which, will assist in continuing to focus on the positive health and safety culture within Trust ensure new members of staff have a positive view of health and safety engendered by the actions of existing staff aim to reduce accidents, incidents and near misses by having appropriate training, supervision, information and communication in place for all staff continue to build the success of local Health and Safety Locality Groups so that localities take ownership of issues and resolve or escalate as appropriate continue with the planned programme of policy review to ensure reviews take place in a timely manner so that policy documents remain current and available to staff. Do: This includes four key elements of health and safety management, Control, Co-operation, Communication and Competence. the health and safety policies clearly define roles and responsibilities at all levels throughout the Trust. Everyone must clearly understand their responsibilities and have the appropriate time and resources to discharge them effectively and that everyone is held accountable for their health and safety performance ensuring effective health and safety management is a collective responsibility in which all individuals must play their part securing the appropriate means of cooperation and communication between different groups of employees ensuring there are regular annual reviews of health and safety to improve performance ensuring appropriate communication channels exist for the dissemination of all appropriate information; 5

8 ensure suitable and sufficient risk assessments are carried out by the appropriate people and shared with all relevant staff. Measuring performance The Trust will do this by: carrying out planned and ad-hoc audits and inspections ensuring all staff know how and when to report incidents and near misses consulting and involving staff and safety representatives in setting and monitoring health and safety performance investigating incidents and reporting health and safety shortcomings and the effect of all relevant Board and management decisions; ensuring health and safety information is a two-way flow, to the Executive Management/Board level and down through all staff groups. Reviewing performance The Trust will do this by: deciding actions to address any weaknesses and a system to monitor their implementation responding quickly to reports or reviews by staff, safety representatives or external agencies the Trust will use the review process to establish priorities for improving health and safety performance. 7. Dissemination Following approval and ratification at the appropriate forum, this strategy will be loaded to the document library. Staff will be made aware of its existence through the weekly staff bulletin and team briefings and at the Health and Safety Locality Group meetings. It will be acknowledged on the Health and Safety Intranet Page including Health and Safety Newsletter. 6

9 8. Process for monitoring effective implementation The Trust will be able to monitor the implementation of this strategy by: monitoring, measuring and reviewing performance against health and safety compliance and agreed corporate standards to reveal when and where improvement is needed gathering and analysing incident reports and ill health data to capture any incidents that demonstrate a failure to observe health and safety procedures are investigated to establish the immediate and underlying causes and trends; and any learning feedback into practice comprehensive programmes of inspection and audit involving all relevant disciplines are undertaken that includes interviewing appropriate staff, examination of relevant documentation and visual observation. 7

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