The Moral, Legal and Financial Reasons for Health and Safety
Click Here to go back to Revision
Duty of Care
Both the employer and employee have a common law duty of care to each other and to other employees. This includes exercising reasonable care in order to protect others from the risks of foreseeable injury, death at work or health problems.
The Employer's Duty of Care
Every employer must provide a safe workplace. This means that, if an employer is aware of a health and safety risk to employees, or ought to have known of its existence (in the light of current knowledge at the time), he will be liable if an employee is injured, killed or suffers illness as a result of the risk and he (the employer) has failed to take reasonable steps to avoid it happening.
Employee Rights and Expectations
Employees have the right to the provision of a safe workplace, as implied by the employer's duty of care, but there are also expectations placed on them to exercise reasonable care in their own actions at work. This means that they must behave in a manor which does not jeopardise their own, or others', health and safety, including co-operating with the employer in the use of safe working practices as provided.