Health & Safety Training

Over 200 people are killed each year in accidents at work and over one million people are injured. Over two million suffer illnesses caused by, or made worse by, their work. Preventing accidents and ill health caused by work is a key priority for everyone at work. As an employer the University understands that competent employees are valuable.

Providing health and safety information and training helps us to:

• ensure our staff and students are not injured or made ill by the work they do;
• develop a positive health and safety culture, where safe and healthy working becomes second nature to everyone;
• find out how we could manage health and safety better;
• meet our legal duty to protect everyone’s health and safety; and
• avoid the financial costs of accidents and occupational ill health

The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 requires us to provide whatever information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of our employees.  This is expanded by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which identify situations where health and safety training is particularly important, eg when people start work, on exposure to new or increased risks and where existing skills may have become rusty or need updating.

Health & Safety short courses are provided both in-house, by members of the Health & Safety Office and by external training providers such as St John Ambulance and ‘Safety Media’ Ltd (e-learning). To comply with legislation the ‘Introduction to Health & Safety’ and ‘Basic Fire Safety’ are compulsory for all new staff.

Booking of all Health & Safety courses (except the 3 day ‘First Aider’ at Work training course*) is via the Learning and Development website

* Requests from staff to become First Aiders and attend the ‘First Aider at Work’ training course must be made directly to the Health & Safety Office and have the approval of your line manager.