The Hints Club

The new official health and safety poster published by the HSE is more attractive as well as easier to understand, according to the agency. The posters use a simple format, which includes the basic safety points in a numbered list, and provide information regarding the correct emergency response and precautions.

Employers have been permitted to use the present version of posters and leaflets until 2014, but only under the condition that they can be easily read. They should have the correct addresses of the enforcing authority and the Employment Medical Advisory Service. Necessary information needed to keep the older version up to date can be obtained from the HSE Infoline on 0845 345 0055.

According to the Health and Safety Information for Employees Regulations (HSIER), the safety poster must be displayed in a part of the workplace that is prominent, so that it can be seen by all the workers. As an alternative for the poster, copies of leaflets containing similar information can also be made available to the workers. The leaflets come in the form of pocket cards, which are better suited to most workplaces.

The new poster and pocket card are in contrast to the older versions, which have been used since 2009, and have been criticized for being dull and thus being rarely read by anyone. The new versions are expected to bring about a better awareness and understanding of the major health and safety issues, which would be advantageous for the employers and workers. Moreover, they would be more cost-effective for the employers as they would eliminate the trouble of adding new information to keep the material updated.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 8:39 am and is filed under Biz Ops, Lawyers' World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.