Health & Safety Policy

Rotary Club of Wakefield Chantry Health & Safety Policy

This Policy has been produced to ensure that the Rotary Club of Wakefield Chantry complies fully with Rotary GB&I and District 1040 safety requirements. The following Policy also conforms to the Rotary GB&I booklet 'Health & Safety Policy for Clubs and Districts'.

A Copy of this booklet is held by the Clubs Health and Safety Officer and is available to all club members upon request.

The booklet provides some very useful information including examples of the management of risk at various types of event.

The main principle in the management of Health & Safety is to ensure that all reasonable and practical steps are taken to prevent harm and this Policy provides the Club with the means to achieve this principle.

This document is mainly concerned with the management of risk in all Rotary activities. It will not prescribe what can or cannot be done; it is the duty of all club members under the Common Law duty of care to do everything possible to ensure that no harm occurs to anyone involved in or associated with club activities.

This document will assist Rotarians in assessing and minimising potential hazards, and recording that process. It will also assist Rotarians in recording actual incidents or near misses, which may occur.

The policy also provides a means of communicating information on risk management to other Clubs within the District and beyond.

Policy The Rotary Club of Brighouse has a responsibility to ensure that all members are aware of the need to plan and organise all its activities and events in a safe manner.

This includes ensuring that all reasonable steps are taken to safeguard everyone involved in a Club activity or in the vicinity of that activity from risk.

The Club is committed to:

• Promoting and encouraging the development of safe practice through management and control of risk as the normal acceptable standard for all its events and activities.
• Providing all members with information, systems and procedures to enable them to manage risk.
• Encouraging communication in order to develop the exchange of ideas and to promote best practice within the Club. Roles Overall responsibility rests with the Club Council who has appointed a Club Health & Safety Officer to advise them.

The Club Health & Safety Officer will formulate and update policies and procedures for the management of risk within the Club.

The Health and Safety Officer will be a primary source of information to members on the management of safety and risk in the club.

A key responsibility for the Health and Safety Officer will be to collate and disseminate information on safety matters within the Club and liaise, as necessary, with the District Health & Safety Advisor.

Responsibility for Club activities and events is with the Club President who ensures that risks affecting all Club activities and events are assessed and managed by the event organiser and their event team.

The Club Health & Safety Officer will assist with this process and keep a written record of all risk assessments and associated documents.

This document will be reviewed at least annually with effect from 1 July each year.

Implementation Risk Assessment As stated above, the assessment and minimising of risk, along with recording these, is crucial to meeting the requirements of good Health & Safety practice.

The aim should never be to prevent an activity occurring but, to ensure that it is carried out as safely as reasonably practicable. Risk management can seem very complicated and bureaucratic but it is really a very simple process.

 Although responsibility for premises in general rests with the proprietor, a written assessment of meeting places should be made. Action should be taken and recorded to minimise any identified hazards. This probably only needs to be done occasionally but note needs to be taken of any specific changes e.g. trailing cables should be located as safely as possible and covered if necessary. A written assessment should be made of every activity before the event.

The Rotary GB&I booklet gives guidance on certain events but does not replace the Club's own assessments. The assessment can be done in many ways but the use of the format in Appendix 1 is recommended.

Any identified actions which will reduce risk must be carried out before the event. In arranging an event, the owner of any premises being used should be asked to give written assurance to the event organiser that they will have a competent person available at the event. Written confirmation of insurance and premises risk assessment including fire risk should be provided at the time of booking.

Any electrical equipment being used by the club should be Portable Appliance tested. The form shown in Appendix 1 should be used for all events to include club meetings. Once a risk assessment form has been completed for an event it should be reviewed when it is repeated and amended accordingly.

However, in the case of the weekly club meetings it should be reviewed when an incident or change occurs and amended to reflect the change.

Recording of Incidents and Near Misses In order to learn from occurrences and to have a reliable record of any incident, it is essential that all incidents and near misses are recorded on the Incident Recording Form in Appendix 2.

Any incident or near miss must be recorded and graded by the Rotarian responsible for the activity with advice from the Club Health & Safety Officer if deemed necessary by the Rotarian.

Ways to prevent a recurrence must also be considered, graded and recorded. The District Health & Safety Advisor should be informed of any major incident as soon as reasonably possible.

A copy of each completed Incident Recording Form should be sent to the District Health & Safety Advisor for collation and dissemination of this information confidentially to other Clubs and, if appropriate, to Rotary GB&I.