Health and Safety breaches

Our criminal defence solicitors specialise in representing clients facing health and safety prosecutions. These cases can arise from a variety of situations, including workplace accidents, breaches of safety regulations, or allegations of failing to comply with health and safety laws. We assist businesses and individuals in defending against charges brought by regulatory bodies, ensuring that all legal avenues are explored. With a detailed understanding of health and safety legislation, our team works to minimise the impact of these serious allegations, helping clients navigate investigations and secure the best possible defence.

As an employer, you must appoint one or more people with the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to help you meet your health and safety duties. These individuals are called competent persons.

You may appoint one competent person, or you may prefer to bring together a combination of people, for example yourself and someone employed by you.

Or you may find it helpful to bring on board external expertise to assist you in managing health and safety if you feel you need to supplement your in-house resources with additional experience and skills in this area.

At Palmers Solicitors, our expertise in health and safety law means that we can assume the role of competent person for your business, advising on current health and safety law and offering guidance tailored to your business and your sector.

People responsible for workplaces and buildings to which the public have access have a duty to take adequate and appropriate fire safety measures, to minimise the risk of injury or loss of life in the event of a fire.

To achieve this, a fire safety risk assessment must be carried out and reviewed regularly.

Ask Palmers Solicitors to carry out a fire risk assessment on your behalf and provide you with advice and guidance on appropriate fire safety measures.

Our health and safety experts can help you to carry out a robust risk assessment by carefully assessing potential dangers to people in your work environment.

We can also assist you in determining the likelihood of harmful incidents occurring and recording the significant findings of your assessment.

In carrying out general workplace risk assessments, we will help you establish how far your business complies with current health and safety law and advise you of actions you need to take if you do not meet the minimum legal requirements.

Following a general workplace risk assessment, business owners and managers need to consider how they should manage the risks identified.

At Palmers Solicitors, our specialists are trained in this process. We can analyse the findings of your risk assessment to provide you with a risk management report.

We will clearly set out what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong and make recommendations for complying with health and safety law, including suggesting amendments to existing policies and procedures and ways of implementing the findings of your risk assessment.

The systems your business has in place to ensure you stay compliant with your health and safety responsibilities need to be fit for purpose.

With that in mind, Palmers Solicitors can subject these systems to a critical, independent, expert examination.

In carrying out your health and safety audit, we will not only advise you on any necessary changes to systems because of changes to health and safety but we will also build into our audit changes in your business that can have an impact on the effectiveness of your health and safety management.

Having a health and safety policy is often the first step to complying with health and safety requirements and will help your business stay a step ahead in managing this complex area.

With a policy in place, you will send a clear message to your employees – and other stakeholders, such as customers and suppliers – that you are committed to protecting the health and safety of your staff and meeting your legal responsibilities.

By law, businesses with more than five employees must have a written health and safety policy that includes details of who is responsible for what issues, when and how.

At Palmers Solicitors, our expert team can provide comprehensive advice to employers who wish to create a health and safety policy, including assistance with establishing policy content, effective ways to implement the policy and how to measure and review performance.

Businesses in the food industry operate in a highly regulated sector and must work to complex and demanding rules on safety and standards.

Palmers Solicitors in Essex are specialists in advising food businesses on the wide-ranging safety and hygiene issues contained in legislation including the Food Safety Act 1990, which aims to ensure that all food produced for sale is safe to eat, reaches quality expectations and is not misleadingly presented, and food regulations, covering issues including food labelling, food hygiene and temperature control.

With magistrates’ courts able to impose a fine of up to £20,000 per Food Safety Act offence and a prison sentence of up to six months – and with potential penalties rising to jail terms of up to two years and/or unlimited fines if a case goes to Crown Court – food-related businesses need to be sure they stay on the right side of the law.

By seeking our advice at the earliest opportunity, we can use our experience to provide practical solutions to firms facing action by food safety authorities with the aim of avoiding prosecution wherever possible.