HEALTH AND SAFETY POLICY STATEMENT

The underlying principles of the policy are to:

· Prevent accidents and cases of work-related ill health by managing health and safety risks in the

workplace.

· Provide clear instructions and information, and adequate training, to ensure employees and volunteers are competent to do their work.

· Engage and consult with employees and volunteers on day to day health and safety matters.

· Implement emergency procedures in relation to for example - the injury/illness of a member during a group session or other significant incident.

· Maintain safe and healthy working conditions, and ensure safe use of all equipment.

· Review and revise this policy as necessary at regular intervals and also in response to an incident or a change in circumstances.

Responsibilities:

To ensure health and safety standards are maintained/improved, the Trustees and the CEO have overall and final responsibility:

· Day-to-day responsibility for ensuring this policy is put into practice is delegated to Group Leaders.

All employees and volunteers must:

· co-operate with this policy;

· take reasonable care of their own health and safety; 

· take reasonable care of the health and safety of all members and visitors attending groups;

· report all health and safety concerns to an appropriate person – either a Group Leader or directly to the Trustees or the CEO.

Health and safety risks arising from work activities:

· Risk assessments are undertaken by the Chair of the Board in consultation with Group Leaders.

· Action required to remove/control risks will be approved by Group Leaders in consultation with the Chair.

· Health and safety risks and significant incidents will be reported to the Chair of the Board of Trustees.

· Risk assessments will be reviewed every six months or if the work activity changes, whichever is soonest.

Consultation with employees and volunteers:

Dementia Active will consult with employees and volunteers on the following:

· any new measure which may substantially affect their health and safety at work, for example the provision of new equipment, new ways of working and new procedures;

· risk assessments related to individual members on a need to know basis;

· information we provide to employees and volunteers on the risks to health and safety arising from their work; measures to reduce or remove these risks and what they should do if they are exposed to a risk, including emergency procedures;

· planning and organising health and safety training for employees and volunteers with specific roles e.g. first aiders, those required to carry out moving and handling tasks or manual handling.*

Dementia Active will:

· consult directly with employees and volunteers through regular team/staff meetings and face-to-face discussions.

· allow enough time for employees and volunteers to consider the issues and give informed responses. 

· take employees’ and volunteers’ views into account before a final decision is made; respond to any concerns and questions raised and explain the final decision and why it has been taken.

Safe equipment:

· The Trustees and the CEO will have overall responsible for identifying all equipment needing maintenance e.g. televisions, monitors, projectors and implementing maintenance.

· Any problems with equipment should be reported to a Group Leader who will communicate with the Trustees and/or the CEO.

· The Trustees and the CEO will have responsibility for ensuring that new equipment meets health and safety standards before it is purchased.

· Group leaders are responsible for ensuring that equipment used in group activities is safe and is used safely e.g. round ended scissors, no sharp tools etc. 

Catering

· All employees and volunteers involved in food preparation have Food Hygiene certificates.

· All members are required prior to admission to a group, to provide information regarding food allergies, food intolerances and dietary related illness – diabetes, Crohn’s disease, IBS etc.

Safe handling and use of substances:

The Trustees and the CEO will have overall responsibility for checking that new substances can be used safely before they are purchased. Dementia Active does not currently use or store any substances which need a COSHH assessment.

Manual Handling:

The Trustees and the CEO has responsibility for ensuring that hazardous manual handling operations are avoided so far as is reasonably practicable. Moving furniture – tables and chairs is only to be carried out by designated people. An assessment of the risk of injury from any hazardous manual handling operations that cannot be avoided will be made and any risk of injury from those operations will be reduced so far as is reasonably practicable. 

Moving and Handling:

• Dementia Active supports people who may have serious difficulties with mobility and therefore require assistance with walking, sitting and standing safely every session. Only designated staff (most usually the group leader) should do this as the risks posed to both the member and an inexperienced person attempting to help are considerable. 
• However other members may just need a light touch supporting hand to give them confidence when mobilising, which anyone can offer. 
• All employees and volunteers should also be aware that even those with no apparent difficulties with mobility may, as a result of their dementia, experience sudden visual disturbance; loss of visual depth of field or confusion about floor surfaces.  No one should offer assistance on their own if they feel that a member is suddenly becoming unbalanced or confused about their orientation. Always request assistance from the group leader and if no help is immediately to hand either help them sit down or if there is no seating nearby then simply support them on the spot and call for assistance.

Information, instruction and supervision:

· The Health and Safety Law poster is displayed by most venues however, to comply with the law Dementia Active provides copies of the Health and Safety Law Leaflet to its own employees and volunteers.

· Health and safety advice is available from the Trustees and/or the CEO.

Accidents, first aid and work-related ill health: 

· The Trustees and the CEO are responsible for ensuring the reporting of accidents, diseases and dangerous occurrences to relevant external agencies and to the Board of Directors.

· The nominated First Aiders are Molly and Andrew Gill and in their absence a first aid trained Group Leader.

· All accidents/illness and cases of work-related ill health are recorded on an online Accident Report Form.

· Group Leaders are responsible for the timely completion of reports.

· The Trustees and the CEO are responsible for the investigation of an accident and the subsequent review of health and safety procedures.

Emergency procedures – fire and evacuation:

Dementia Active complies with all relevant fire safety requirements including PAT testing electrical equipment owned by Dementia Active.

· In relation to evacuation, our premises has fire doors exiting to the outside of the building. They are clearly marked and very easily accessible. Our assembly point is the car parking spaces outside of 6 Manor Park.

· In the event of a fire, the Fire warden on duty will assess the extent of the fire, make use of any fire equipment available that they have had training to use, if safe to do so. If not, the fire warden will order an evacuation of the building and call the fire brigade.

(Health and Safety Law leaflet, download and printable). 

Andrew Gill.

04/01/25

Review date – 03/01/26

* People Moving & Handling, or simply Moving & Handling, are terms commonly used to refer the manual handling of people. This allows us to differentiate it from the traditional usage of the term Manual Handling, which is generally used to refer to the physical manipulation of inanimate objects and loads.