Groundworks health and safety pack. BEST OFFER

Buying these documents as a package as oppose to individually is great value for money as it saves you over £110.00 on the list price, and what you get for your money has been written by trained health and safety professionals.

The comprehensive 78 page document comes as a download in docx format, so is editable in Word™ or the processor of your choice, allowing you to customise and edit the document as you see fit. You can easily add your company logo or photographs of past jobs to the document so it becomes part of your company brand.

And as mentioned above: Once you buy this H&S package, it’s yours for life, with no other charges and unlimited downloads. As far as health and safety packages go for groundworks, we don’t think you can find better.

Groundwork can present many hazards that are high risk, and include trench or excavation collapse and buried services. Additionally, excavators are historical killers with an average of three fatalities a year, with most of these been caused by a person struck by the excavator bucket or arm.

However, if we move away from high risk areas and look at more common causes for accidents that groundworkers have, we see a patten emerging that includes slips, trips and falls on the same level, falling from height (into trenches and excavations), manual handling injuries, musculoskeletal injuries (particularly to knees), hearing loss, impact or crushing injuries (particularly to hands) and lung damage from silica dust.

H&S for groundworks should be designed to identify risks that can cause harm, and put control measures in place that either eliminate or significantly reduce the risk to an acceptable level.

RAMS are an essential part of health and safety at the workplace and the acronym stands for ‘risk assessments and method statements’. However, this is no longer the true meaning, as RAMS are now expected to contain COSHH assessments and any other H&S documentation that a principle contractor requests.

RAMS now tend to refer to all the documentation in a contractors H&S folder, and what needs to go in this folder will vary depending on the principal contractors preferences or conditions to join an approved supplier list.

If you have five or more employees it is a legal requirement to have a company H&S policy that sets out how your company will address welfare and health and safety, and how you will manage health and safety within your business. The policy must be shared or made available to all employees, and they must be informed of any edits or amendments.

It is also a legal requirement to carry out COSHH assessments for any substances used at the workplace. Both the COSHH Regulations and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations stipulate this, and no substance should be used in the workplace without a COSHH assessment in place. We may think that household products such as bleach or detergent are exempt from the law, but in a working environment they are not, and it’s legal requirement of the employer to provide them.

Risk assessments are another legal requirement. Put simply, an employer shouldn’t ask an employee to carry out a task before they’ve evaluated the risks, and put control measures in place if any hazards are found. The control measures are put in place to eliminate the risk or bring it down to an acceptable level. In short, an employee has no right to put someone in danger whist at the workplace.

Method statements are a requirement for every principal contractor that we’ve know, but they aren’t a legal requirement. Even though they list the order or works and include safe working practices, they are not a legal requirement. You will need to submit them to principle contractors and CDM sites, or your company won’t be considered.

These are the four main document types that everyone must have, and the method statements, risk and COSHH assessments are referred to as RAMS, while the company health and safety policy is a stand alone document.

Sometimes when a company submits their H&S documents for a new project, they might get bounced back a few times. Each time they get returned is because the new project wants more detail or another document. It can sometimes feel like your wasting your time or banging your head on the wall, because after all, the trades people have all been with your company for a long time and know what they’re doing.

It’s so easy in this situation to close the book on H&S as soon as you’ve satisfied the new projects demands. That’s it. You’ve done the health and safety to get the job and won’t have to think about it again until the next time. Altering your H&S documents to satisfy the new contract might have got you the work, but unless you tell your staff about the alterations they will just be a paper exercise.

This is where staff training is so important. Communication is the key, and it can be a foreman giving a toolbox talk, fliers handed out with the latest amendments on, a working demonstration or an online training course. Either way, staff need educating on the safe way to use new products and the safe way to carry out new tasks.

Table of contents for the groundworks package

Risk assessments for:

• 01) general groundworks and fencing
• 02) 180° and 360°excavators
• 03) Risk awareness for areas where asbestos could potentially be discovered

Method statements for:

• 04) block paving
• 05) laying slabs
• 06) brick and blockwork
• 07) fencing
• 08) underground drainage
• 09) hedge cutting, strimming and lawn works
• 10) underpinning

COSHH assessments for:

• 11) brick and patio cleaner (Acid)
• 12) brick and patio cleaner (Eco)
• 13) cutting cement and bricks
• 14) cement
• 15) concrete hardener and sealer
• 16) glyphosate weed killer
• 17) hydrated lime
• 18) hydraulic lime
• 19) line marking paint
• 20) mortar plasticiser
• 21) petrol
• 22) two stroke oil