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Health and safety in the workplace
(Source: Equality and Human Rights Commission)
If you have a disability or health condition, you are protected by both the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the DDA. There will be times when a particular job or task puts your health or safety at such risk that it is not reasonable for an employer to allow you to perform it. However, such examples are rare, and health and safety should never be used as a false excuse for not employing, or not continuing to employ, you.
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act, employers must ‘ensure so far as is reasonably practicable the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees’. All employers must carry out a risk assessment of the activities carried out by workers. The risk assessment model considers the additional risks to certain groups of workers. You may, as a disabled person, fall into this category. If your employer thinks there is a specific health and safety risk involved in recruiting or retaining you, then under the DDA they need to consider reasonable adjustments.
The quality of the risk assessment is critical. Your employer may need to use specialist staff and the person doing the assessment must:
- focus on you as an individual, not people with your condition in general;
- consider the facts;
- not make assumptions;
- get individual specific medical advice; and
- talk to you about how reasonable adjustments can be made.
The risk assessment should also consider the essential elements of the job; the length of time and frequency of any hazardous situations; and any reasonable adjustments that can be made to reduce the risk.
If there is still an unacceptable risk, even with adjustments, then the employer could lawfully dismiss or not employ you. The question is what is ‘unacceptable’: this can only be tested in the courts. Increasing case law precedent is being set, which gives further guidance to employers.
The employer is the person who must take the decision about whether to employ or retain you in a job. If they seek expert advice from medical services or health and safety specialists, these are agents of the employer, and the employer has a duty to ensure that the specialists have considered all the facts.
If you or your employer have concerns about health and safety, contact your local health and safety advisor, the Health and Safety Executive or the Employers’ Forum on Disability.
FIRE HAZARDS AND LIFTS
One thing that employers often worry about when thinking about employing a disabled person is what would happen in the event of a fire. This is often based on lack of information, with employers wrongly believing that wheelchair users should not be employed because they would not be able to escape from a building on fire where lifts were out of use. Deaf, hearing impaired blind people may also be discriminated against because people wrongly believe they won’t know there is a fire alarm or may ‘get in the way’ of colleagues trying to escape.
If you have a disability that may present a difficulty during a fire at your workplace, you need to have a discussion and draw up an agreed plan with your line manager and/or premises manager about this. There may be very simple changes that can be made to stop this from ever being a problem:
- providing flashing lights as alarms, as well as things that make a noise;
making sure that colleagues working with deaf people have a basic awareness of sign language and deaf issues;
- the establishment of a ‘buddy’ system to ensure wheelchair users are helped in an emergency;
- providing a visually impaired person with named guides in case of fire;
- providing temporary places of refuge for wheelchair users protected by fire resistant doors and from which there is a safe route to a final exit (the refuge may also have a means of communication to a central control point); or
- training for staff in evacuation plans.
These plans should be made known to all staff concerned and tested at regular intervals. A well thought through evacuation plan should take into account the needs of every individual in the building, including, for example, women in the later stages of pregnancy. Very often, this can help to improve procedures and safety overall.
You may wish to discuss your needs in confidence, in which case only certain key individuals need know about your unique plan.
Equal Opportunity Employers
