Health & Safety Policy

Designated Persons –  All Trustees

A Lifetime Of Wisdom CIC is working towards a comprehensive Health and Safety Policy and is bound to abide by the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. This lays down certain duties of all volunteers. The duties are to take care of their own safety and that of volunteers, and visitors and to co-operate with the Trustee Board and its officers to enable it to carry out its responsibilities.

Volunteers have a duty to:

  • work safely, efficiently and without endangering the health and safety of themselves, their colleagues or any other person who has a right of access to the organisation’s Equipment at any time.
  • adhere to safety procedures laid down by A Lifetime Of Wisdom CIC from time to time, and conform to all instructions given by those with a responsibility for health and safety
  • record all accidents, near miss occurrences and hazardous situations in the Health and Safety/Accident book and report to the next meeting.
  • meet their other statutory safety obligations including that laid down in Section 8 of the Act, which states that “no person shall intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse anything provided in the interests of health, safety or welfare in pursuance of any of the relevant statutory provisions”.

Organisation and responsibilities

1.1 Trustee Board

Overall and final health and safety responsibility within the organisation lies with the Trustee Board. The Trustee Board shall appoint one person who will take the responsibility for drawing to the attention of the Trustee Board, volunteers any health and safety matters that need to be discussed and/or acted upon.

1.2 Delegated responsibilities

Trustees shall be given delegated responsibility for ensuring that the Health and Safety policy is carried out within the organisation. He will be given delegated responsibility for:

  • carrying out regular safety inspections of the Trishaws 
  • investigating and reporting accidents
  • ensuring all volunteers are given a copy of this Policy and understand its contents; 
  • drawing to the attention of the Trustee Board, any new legislation on health and safety relevant to the CWAW
  • drawing to the Trustee Board’s attention any matters with which he is unable to deal with.

1.3 Volunteers

All volunteers have a responsibility to:

  • read and fully understand the CWAW Policy statement and the procedures to be carried out and seek clarification from the [DESIGNATED PERSONS]
  • co-operate with the Trustee Board and the [DESIGNATED PERSONS], as appropriate, to achieve a healthy and safe workplace and to take reasonable care of themselves and others
  • report to the [DESIGNATED PERSONS] within 24 hours any accident occurring:
  • bring to the notice of the [DESIGNATED PERSONS] any potentially dangerous circumstances that the volunteer is unable to put right.

1.4 Review

The [DESIGNATED PERSONS], in conjunction with the Trustees, will keep this Policy under constant review to reflect any changes in legislation. The Policy will be fully reviewed every 3 years and will be subject to approval by the Trustee Board.

General arrangements

2.1 Accidents, near-miss occurrences, and hazardous situations.

CWAW has a Health and Safety Accident Book located in the black folder on the Trishaw and all incidents, no matter how small, must be recorded as soon as possible after the incident. The incident should also be reported to the [DESIGNATED PERSONS]. In addition to reporting accidents, it is equally important to report near misses and potential hazards to enable preventative action to be taken before it is too late. Once an incident has been recorded in the Accident Book the Sheet must be removed and stored separately, e.g., in the personnel file. 

It is the responsibility of the [DESIGNATED PERSONS] to ensure that any necessary follow up action is taken to reduce the risk of the accident or near accident reoccurring.

The [DESIGNATED PERSONS] is responsible for reporting incidents which come within the Reporting of Injuries,), to the Health and Safety Executive. RIDDOR covers the following incidents:

(a) fatal accidents

(b) major injury accidents/conditions

(c) dangerous occurrences

A First Aid kit is available in all Trishaws.