The UK is facing recordābreaking temperatures exceeding 38Ā°C, prompting government alerts, workplace disruptions, and new safety guidance across multiple sectors. At the same time, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued major updates on workplace health leadership and continued enforcement around construction safety. This weekās blog brings together the most important developments employers need to act on now.
What Employers Must Prioritise This Week
š„ Extreme Heatwave: Immediate Actions for Employers
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Met Office have issued red weather warnings, with significant risks to health, travel disruption, and workplace operations.
With temperatures soaring, the Department for Education has confirmed that schools should generally remain open, but must take steps to keep children safe.
HSE has issued multiple enforcement actions this week following falls from height, collapsing excavation walls, and unguarded machinery incidents. Falls from height remain the leading cause of workplace fatalities in the UK.
On 24 June, HSE launched the Principles of Workplace Health and Wellbeing Leadership, a new framework aimed at improving physical and mental health standards across major hazard industries.
A clinical waste company was fined Ā£300,150 after an 18āyearāold worker fractured his leg in an unguarded conveyor. HSE found no suitable risk assessment was in place.
This weekās combination of extreme heat, new national health frameworks, and ongoing enforcement actions makes it essential for employers to:
If you have any questions, or wish to have a heat stress risk assessment produced, please contact us.
Guest Blogging
If you feel that you could contribute to this blog then please feel free to send us a proposal of your guest blogging ideas and we can discuss these further info@walkersafety.co.ukĀ . Please note any proposals must be of benefit to my readers from individuals with knowledge of their subject matter.
The UK is experiencing hotter, longer, and more frequent heatwaves ā a trend that is expected to intensify over the coming years. High temperatures donāt just cause discomfort; they create real health and safety risks that employers are legally required to manage.
This blog breaks down:
Heatwaves increase the likelihood of:
These risks affect all sectors, but especially, Construction, Warehousing and logistics, Manufacturing, Agriculture, Hospitality, Transport and Office environments with poor ventilation.
Several UK laws apply to heatwave safety:
Employers must ensure the health, safety, and welfare of employees so far as is reasonably practicable.
Employers must carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments, including environmental risks such as heat.
Workplaces must have a reasonable temperature. There is no legal maximum temperature, but employers must take action when conditions become unsafe.
PPE must be suitable for the conditions ā including heat.
Employees must receive adequate rest breaks, which may need to be increased during extreme heat.
Employers have a duty to anticipate, assess, and control heatārelated risks. Key responsibilities include:
Review:
Employers should implement:
Provide:
Employees must be informed about:
Conditions can change rapidly. Employers should:
Employees also have duties under UK law.
Workers must comply with heatārelated controls, including:
Employees should report:
Early reporting prevents serious incidents.
Heat can affect machinery. Employees must:
During a heatwave, employers should consider:
Outdoor workers may need:
Clear communication prevents accidents. Employers should:
Workers must know:
Heatwaves are no longer rare events ā they are a foreseeable hazard. That means employers must plan for them just as they would for any other workplace risk.
A proactive approach protects:
Contact us should you wish to find out more or request a risk assessment.
A wellādesigned Display Screen Equipment (DSE) setup isnāt just a boxāticking exerciseāitās a legal requirement and a cornerstone of keeping people healthy, comfortable, and productive at work. The UKās Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 set out clear duties for employers and expectations for workers, and understanding them helps prevent avoidable discomfort and longāterm health issues.
The DSE Regulations apply to anyone who uses a screen for an hour or more as part of their normal work. These workers are classed as DSE users. Employers must:
These duties apply whether someone works in an office, hybrid, or from home.
Prolonged screen use can lead to a range of health issues if workstations arenāt set up correctly. While the risks are often low, they become significant when poor posture, unsuitable equipment, or long periods without breaks are involved.
A good DSE setup helps:
DSEārelated problems typically develop gradually, which is why early reporting and proper assessments are so important. Key issues include:
These conditions can be prevented or significantly reduced with proper workstation design and regular review.
Workers have a responsibility to report discomfort, pain, or any issues with their workstation as soon as they arise. The regulations expect users to:
Speaking up isnāt complainingāitās essential for preventing minor discomfort from becoming a longāterm health problem.
A DSE assessment must be carried out:
Assessments should look at:
Where risks are identified, employers must take actionāwhether thatās adjusting equipment, providing accessories, or changing work routines.
A strong DSE culture is built on:
This isnāt just about complianceāitās about valuing peopleās health and ensuring they can work comfortably and effectively.
Take a look at the infographic belowĀ to offer guidance.
Contact us if you require a DSE assessment or would like further information.
H&S
Health and safety isnāt just the responsibility of managers, consultants, or directors. For it to work effectively, everyone needs a basic level of understanding, supported by clear, accessible health and safety documentation on the premises.
Policies and procedures only protect people if they are understood, available, and followed. Without this, even the best-written systems quickly become ineffective.
The Importance of Basic Health and Safety Awareness
A basic understanding of health and safety enables employees to:
When people understand why rules exist ā not just what they are ā compliance improves, risks reduce, and safety becomes part of everyday working life rather than an afterthought.
The Role of Health and Safety Documentation
Health and safety documentation provides the framework that supports safe working. This may include:
Having these documents available on the premises ensures employees can refer to them when needed and confirms that the organisation has clearly communicated expectations.
Documentation should never sit unseen in a filing cabinet or digital folder. It must be accessible, relevant, and practical.
Training: Turning Paper Into Practice
Training bridges the gap between written procedures and real-world behaviour.
Effective health and safety training:
Training should be proportionate to the role and risks involved. Inductions, toolbox talks, and refresher sessions are all valuable ways of ensuring employees remain informed and competent.
Without training, documentation becomes meaningless. Without documentation, training lacks consistency.
Maintaining and Reviewing Health and Safety Documents
Health and safety documentation must be kept up to date.
This includes:
Regular review ensures documents remain accurate, legally compliant, and aligned with how work is actually carried out.
Everyone on Board With a Common Goal
Health and safety works best when everyone shares the same objective: keeping people safe.
This means:
When health and safety is seen as a shared responsibility rather than a burden, it becomes part of the company culture. This shared commitment leads to better communication, fewer incidents, and a safer workplace overall.
Legal Duties and Responsibilities
UK legislation makes it clear that employers must provide information, instruction, training, and supervision to protect health and safety.
Key legislation includes:
Employees also have duties to:
Accessible documentation and basic understanding support everyone in meeting these legal obligations.
The Benefits of Getting It Right
Organisations that prioritise health and safety understanding and documentation benefit from:
Ultimately, good health and safety management protects people ā and that protection relies on knowledge, communication, and consistency.
Final Thoughts
Health and safety doesnāt need to be complicated, but it does need to be clear, understood, and accessible.
Providing employees with a basic level of health and safety knowledge, supported by well-maintained documentation on the premises, enables them to work safely, confidently, and in line with company policies and procedures.
When everyone understands their role and works towards a common goal, health and safety becomes not just a requirement ā but a strength.
To find out more about your roles and responsibilities, click here.
Contact us if you require further information.
Guest Blogging
If you feel that you could contribute to this blog then please feel free to send me a proposal of your guest blogging ideas and we can discuss these furtherĀ info@walkersafety.co.ukĀ . Please note any proposals must be of benefit to our readers from individuals with knowledge of their subject matter.
People escape to fire exit door
How long should it take to evacuate your premises in the event of a fire?
Fire safety practitioners are often asked, particularly after a fire drill, how long it should take to evacuate the premises.
What, on the face of it, appears to be a simple question has quite a complex answer, particularly in view of the UKās risk-based fire safety regime.
Those responsible for fire safety need to know what would be deemed to be a safe evacuation time and the factors that influence this.
Legislation, such as the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRFSO), does not prescribe any evacuation times. Rather, the RRFSO states that āin the event of danger, it must be possible for persons to evacuate the premises as quickly and as safely as possibleā.
The reason for this is that, unlike fire certification arrangements under the old regime, where each certificate was building specific, the RRFSO applies to a wide range of buildings, therefore making it impossible to prescribe evacuation times.
Guidance to the RRFSO does contain further information on evacuation times. For example, guidance for office environments notes that āescape routes in a building should be designed so that people can escape quickly enough to ensure they are not placed in any danger from fireā.
The key phrase here is āshould be designedā. This clearly indicates that designers of buildings need to consider the design of the means of escape as part of the overall design of the property so that occupants can move to a place of reasonable and/or total safety before the conditions in the property become untenable.
Certainly, designers should be following the requirements of the respective Building Regulations and associated guidance such as that contained inĀ Approved Document B: Fire safety, BS9999:2017Ā Fire Safety in the Design, Management and Use of BuildingsĀ and BS ISO 20414:2020Ā Fire Safety Engineering. Verification and Validation Protocol for Building Fire Evacuation Models.
It is key that the fire safety practitioner responsible for fire evacuation in a property as occupied has access to and can share necessary information in relation to the design of the means of escape are provided.
Although this information will not provide an exact evacuation time, it will enable:
This information is particularly important given the current emphasis on the āgolden threadā of information approach for buildings that is recommended following a review into the Grenfell fire.
Human behaviour
It is widely recognised that up to two-thirds of actual evacuation time consists of occupants delaying when the evacuation signal is given.
These factors are built into what are known as the:
For safe evacuation to occur, the ASET must be significantly longer than the RSET. There are a number of factors that will affect the RSET and ASET. These include the time:
In theory the fire safety practitioner should be able to rely on the RSET and ASET and be confident that the evacuation time will be within this scope.
However, there are many factors that may affect the RSET and ASET in āreal worldā conditions, not least:
If occupants are unable to evacuate in a timely manner this could result in a breach of relevant fire safety legislation and increase the risk of injury or death.
PAS 79-1:2020Ā Fire Risk Assessment. Premises Other Than Housing. Code of Practice, notes that āan assessment should be made of the likely consequences of fireā.
The assessment should āunderstand that all persons within the premises should be able to reach a place of ultimate safety before life threatening conditions arise; either unaided or with the assistance of staff ā without FRS assistance (RSET versus ASET)ā.
In assessing this aspect, the fire risk assessor may consider a number of inputs into the process including:
These could then be used to determine (usually in a qualitative manner) whether the ASET/RSET requirements are being met or whether real-life evacuation takes longer, creating a situation where occupants may be at risk of harm.
