Community equipment and housing adaptations: draft guidance - executive summary

Health & Safety

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to ensure the health safety and welfare of all their employees, so far as is reasonably practicable.

It is therefore important to clarify that the liability and responsibility for ensuring adherence with health & safety legislation sits with the employers of staff using equipment, and not with the Store service provider who procures and delivers the equipment. Store services will, as part of their wider service, provide repairs, maintenance, and health and safety testing as directed by the partners, who fund the Store service arrangements. The Store service is therefore responsible for carrying out testing arrangements as agreed with the partners. It is therefore incumbent upon the partners to ensure they have funded and resourced, and clearly directed their Store service provider on the requirements to be met.

Key Actions

• Partnerships should follow the Manual Handling Operations Regulation 1992 which provides a general framework for tackling handling activities at work.
• Health and safety risk management must form an integral part of the care assessment.
• All care workers (including unpaid carers) must be suitably trained in safer handling techniques. It is the responsibility of the employing agency to provide appropriate training for their staff and the assessor/care manager should refer the unpaid carer to relevant support for moving and handling training.
• Care service providers, or employing agencies must ensure that the equipment is in good working order, and that all care workers are aware of and understand the appropriate application and limitations equipment.
• Partners and their Store service provider should ensure they have clarified what arrangements they wish to have in place as standard maintenance arrangements for all relevant equipment. It is then the store services responsibility to ensure robust servicing and maintenance arrangements are in place.
• Partnerships should have clear arrangements in place which identify the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, in the event of an incident, including reporting to IRIC.
• Store services should have arrangements in place for the circulation of relevant MHRA alerts, and appropriate responses to the alert.