In the past, before health and safety legislation, construction sites were a risky place to be. Staff on these sites were risking their life and physical health, because there was no protection from hazards, and no risk assessments before the work began so as to stop accidents from occurring. Eventually, a lot of people were killed or seriously hurt that governments were forced to bring in health and safety procedures in order to guard people as they worked. This is the cause why health and safety plans must be involved on every construction site in the UK, and in much of the Western world.
However, for construction site owners and contractors, drawing up a construction phase safety plan can be really hard. Without a proper education in health and safety procedures, and with no genuine knowledge of drawing up legal and formal credentials, it will be a real struggle for them to make the plans. They usually neglect it until the last minute, and this can be a grave mistake, because a missing, inaccurate or incomplete health and safety plan could get the contractor into serious trouble.
Devoid of this plan, construction site owners, managers and first contractors are all liable, which means they could be forced to pay compensation in the event of any accident. This could cost thousands, if not tens of thousands, of pounds for every claim. Using somebody to create the plan for you can also mean paying through the nose for the health and safety document.
The simplest solution to the matter of drawing up a plan is to employ a construction phase health and safety plan template. These are intended to permit you to form the required documents yourself, simply by following a pre-arranged format. The construction phase health and safety plan template can employ a series of queries to select the legislation that you need to include in your document, and remove something that is not required to the actual project.
The construction phase health and safety plan template is more cost effective than bringing in an expert to write the document for you, however it’s also better than writing the document yourself, which might expose you to liability. By choosing to employ a construction phase health and safety plan template, you can save money on creating the document, however even protect yourself against compensation pay-outs. This provides you the best of both worlds, and permits you to produce a document which is totally compliant with the health and safety needs of the HSE.