Workplace Health & Safety Resolutions You Should Make

Hello, 2019! A new year is upon us, which for a lot of people, means devising a list of New Year’s Resolutions. Whether your personal resolutions include finding a new hobby or ditching bad habits, there are some resolutions that we think workplaces definitely should make this year to improve their health and safety. 

Learn Life-saving First Aid

Workplace first aid training is essential for all employees, as it means that each person can quickly and effectively respond in the event of a medical emergency. Not only will you and your staff gain life-saving knowledge from first aid training, but you will also gain the confidence to act in an emergency situation.

Around 27 million working days are lost each year due to work-related illness or workplace injury. This is estimated to cost society approximately £14.2 billion, causing inconvenience for both the employer and employee. Having some basic first aid knowledge will allow staff to become more aware of health and safety precautions and know how to respond if an accident occurs.

Learning first aid can also be seen as an opportunity for staff team-building, as it encourages your employees to look out for one another. This can significantly improve employee well-being.

Stock up your First Aid Kit

It is important to have a fully stocked first aid kit in the workplace at all times to ensure that both minor and major incidents can be treated promptly and effectively. A good first aid kit will include items that are in date and ready-to-use.

A basic first aid kit should contain:

• Plasters in different shapes and sizes
• Small, medium and large sterile gauze dressings
• At least two sterile eye dressings
• Triangular bandages
• Crêpe rolled bandages
• Safety pins
• Disposable sterile gloves
• Tweezers
• Scissors
• Alcohol-free cleansing wipes
• Sticky tape
• Thermometer
• Skin rash cream
• Cream or spray to relieve insect bites and stings
• Antiseptic cream
• Painkillers such as paracetamol, aspirin or ibuprofen
• Cough medicine
• Antihistamine tablets
• Distilled water for cleaning wounds
• Eyewash and eye bath
• Accident report book

Invest in an AED

An Automated External Defibrillator (AED) and effective CPR is the only definitive treatment for a victim of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).

While we are starting to see more of these life-saving devices becoming available in public places such as train stations, shopping centres, airports and leisure centres, there are many workplaces that are still not equipped. Around 20% of SCA’s occur in public areas, and for every minute that passes, a casualty’s chance of survival decreases by 10%.

Therefore, we think that a defibrillator is definitely something that you should consider introducing into the workplace in 2019.

Tidy Office, Tidy Mind

Clearing out the clutter from your office is likely to have a positive impact on your motivation and productivity, but will also remove any hazards from the workplace.  Around 43% of workplace injuries are made up of trips and falls. Keeping the workplace tidy, which includes organising any stray cables and clearing walkways of obstructions, will help to avoid any accidents.

Test your Fire Alarms

It’s such a simple task, but many people forget to test their fire alarms to check that they are in full working order.

It is recommended that your fire alarm should be fully serviced at least every 6 months and should be tested weekly to maintain your alarm and ensure that it can alert people in the event of a fire emergency.

Happy New Year!

So, we hope that this has given you some food for thought on changes that should be made in the workplace to help you go above and beyond safety regulations.

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy new year and thank you for your continued support.

What are your New Year’s Resolutions? Let us know by tweeting us @ImpTraining.