From the 1st of February the United Kingdom is no longer a member of the European Union. So what does this mean for health and safety?

As you will already know, from the 1st of February the United Kingdom is no longer a member of the European Union. We’ve been asked a number of times to confirm if anything has changed in respect to your health and safety duties. It is important to note that there are no changes to your health and safety duties during the transition period.

People want to go home safe at sound at the end of their working day, and a well-managed health and safety programme remains the best way of achieving this goal. The Health and Safety Executive have put out the following statement to reassure managers, officers and others responsible for health and safety, that their duties stay the same as we transition our relationship with the European Union.

Health and Safety Executive statement:

“We are now in a transition period until 31 December 2020, while negotiations with the EU take place about the future relationship.

During this transition period your duty to manage risk in the workplace will not change.

Good health and safety is good for business, we want to help organisations to manage risk well and proportionately. This will help maintain standards and keep people healthy and safe.

We will keep you updated on what you need to know during the transition period. You can find out more on our Brexit webpages.

Our ‘Health and Safety made simple’ guidance provides useful information to help you manage the risks in your business in a proportionate way.”

We’ll continue to update you as the position changes beyond the 31st December 2020 and will ensure that our customers and readers are kept aware of how the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union will change, if at all, our health and safety duties.

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