Health and Safety signs can often be seen in all working premises, however, even though they frequent the walls of many buildings, ensuring you understand what they mean is paramount for maintaining a safe working environment. Contact the experts at Employer Advice to discuss your legal responsibilities when it comes to the health and safety...
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Health and Safety signs can often be seen in all working premises, however, even though they frequent the walls of many buildings, ensuring you understand what they mean is paramount for maintaining a safe working environment.
Contact the experts at Employer Advice to discuss your legal responsibilities when it comes to the health and safety of your employees and avoid costly legal claims and reputational damage. Call today on 0800 470 3529.
Health and safety signs are primarily used to inform or warn people in the working environment about hazards and risks present. This can be in areas where there is equipment or substances that can be considered a hazard to health.
They can also be displayed around other parts of the workplace to inform people in the premises about proper procedure in reporting a hazard and preventative measures. This isn’t necessarily limited to hazardous machinery or substances, but can inform on proper sanitation, where infection could be an issue, such as hospitals, or on correct operational procedure for equipment.
Health and Safety signs are hugely important, and in some cases mandatory. In industries such as construction and those dealing with substances hazardous to health, certain safety signs are a legal requirement.
They are there to ensure that people remain safe in the workplace and avoid accidents resulting in injury or worse.
Health and safety signs are colour coded to make them more easily identifiable and to inform people in the immediate environment what hazards to be on the lookout for. Much in the same way road traffic signs have different colours and shapes to inform motorists of hazards or instructions.
Red typically means stop or no. In the world of health and safety, a sign that displays a red diagonal line through it means “prohibited” or “danger”. These will typically be accompanied by an instruction to cease, such as ‘no entry’.
Yellow typically warns people of potential hazards and that they should seek to take precautions when in the area marked with these signs.
These signs denote mandatory behaviour for anyone and all people in the designated area. This could include things such as using the correct PPE, such as eye or hearing protection.
Green signs indicate safety or the path to safety. They typically are found highlighting emergency exits or the location of first aid kits etc.
The above indicate the colour schemes of everyday, general health and safety signage. When it comes to fire safety things differ ever so slightly.
Red fire safety signs indicate the location of firefighting equipment such as extinguishers and hose reels. They also typically show instructions for the equipment use and suitability for different types of fires.
As with green Health and Safety signs, green Fire safety signs indicate safety and are used to indicate emergency exits, mapping out fire escape routes.
As with general health and safety signs, these denote a mandatory condition. They are most commonly seen on fire doors i.e. ‘Fire door. Keep Shut’.
Fire safety signs are a legal requirement if you own a business premises. However depending on the type of premises you have this might mean that different types of fire safety signs are mandatory to your building whilst others are not.
All commercial premises must display these. They outline:
Best practice is to locate these next to the fire alarm call point and at the final exit doors.
Final fire exits should be clearly signed; and, where needed, directional fire escape signage should be in place throughout your premises to guide people towards their nearest fire exit.
All fire doors must carry the ‘Fire door keep shut’ sign. This blue mandatory notice denotes instruction to be followed, keeping the building fire safe.
The fire assembly point should be far enough away from the building so as not to hinder the fire brigade or put people at risk from debris etc. For this reason it should be clearly signposted.
You should also ensure that the location of the assembly point takes into account all persons who use the building, such as those with a disability etc.
This can be used to highlight the location of equipment like fire extinguishers, hose reels, dry risers and fire alarms.
95% of fires that are tackled with an extinguisher are put out in the first 2 minutes so locating your nearest suitable fire extinguisher is a necessity. Also having an extinguisher on site is a legal requirement, therefore it is mandatory to have at least one fire equipment sign on site.
These are coloured yellow and black and are typically used to indicate a substance that is flammable.
These are typically displayed as a circle with a red outline and diagonal strikethrough. They are used to display “DO NOT…” instructions such as ‘No smoking or naked flames’. They are often displayed in tandem with warning signs to prohibit action where there is a fire risk.
Navigating the world of Health and Safety can be a minefield.
As an employer, making a mistake can prove costly, so don’t leave it to chance contact our team today on 0800 470 3529 and get expert advice to avoid getting ensnared in legal litigation.