The Health and Safety File is a record of documentation for the client or the end user which focuses on health and safety. The information it contains will alert those responsible for the management of health and safety risks during subsequent maintenance, repair and construction work. The amount of information needed in the Health and Safety File and the time and effort required to prepare it should be in proportion to the scale and design of the structure. Structures with minimal health and safety risks will call for a simple, straightforward file. Large structures or those involving significant risks will need more detail.
How the Health & Safety File is compiled
The principal designer is responsible for ensuring that the Health and Safety File is prepared.
Early on in the construction project, the principal designer will discuss the Health and Safety File with the client. This will help determine what information the client requires and how the client wishes the information to be stored and recorded. When the client’s requirements are known, procedures may need to be drawn up by the principal designer so that all those contributing to the Health and Safety File (e.g. designers and contractors) are aware of:
- What documentation is to be collected
- How the documentation is to be collected, presented and stored.
The principal designer details in the pre-construction information the requirements on how and when the information for the Health and Safety File is to be compiled and passed on. The principal contractor includes similar procedures in the Construction Phase Health and Safety Plan.
Morgan Risk Management offers support in compiling the Construction Phase Health and Safety plan and also the Health and Safety File of a project.
Throughout the project those who carry out design work (including contractors) need to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that information about any feature of the structure which will involve significant risks to health and safety during the structure’s lifetime is passed to either the principal designer or to the principal contractor.
Providing this information on drawings allows for amendments if any variations arise during construction. It also allows health and safety information to be stored on one document, therefore reducing the paperwork.